


The Tale of the Scorpion

by adabsolutely, mackiedockie



Category: Highlander - All Media Types, Highlander: The Series, The High Chaparral
Genre: Blues, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, F/M, Het, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mexico, Slash, Sonora, scorpion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:34:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 57,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adabsolutely/pseuds/adabsolutely, https://archiveofourown.org/users/mackiedockie/pseuds/mackiedockie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe Dawson tells everyone that he's gone to Mexico for a vacation.  Methos doesn't believe him.  Neither does<br/>El Alacrán, The Scorpion, an Immortal with links to Duncan MacLeod's past.  By the time MacLeod catches up with his wandering Watcher, Joe triggers a sting before it can trap them all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1. At the Playa

**Author's Note:**

> No scorpions were harmed in the production of this fic, but for those with issues with arthropods, please feel free to email the authors. Thanks go to our beta readers: Lferion, Unovis, Methos_fan, Anya2112, Dragonfly, Birggett, and dear_Ophelia. As adabsolutely says, no curtains were used in the production of this fic--if there were, we'd have ended up getting blood on them. In fact, I think we did.
> 
> The photos of the San Carlos area were taken while visiting with great good friends--many, many thanks to el Capitan y N-Seine for the Best. Vacations. Ever.

 

Joe kicked back under the dappled light of the palapa, a Pacifico and lime in one hand, and a very old book by a very old friend in the other. He had no plans on moving for oh...say...another three days if he could help it. And if a certain old pain-in-the-ass made good on his threat to steal back his book and force him to drink fruit juice and exercise on his supposed vacation, well, Joe just wouldn't be responsible for mending the bullet holes.

Methos lounged in the sand next to Joe's beach chair with his own libation, some touristy drink with fruit and rum. With the innocent mask of Adam Pierson plastered on firmly, and proud nose hidden behind a tattered William Gibson paperback, he appeared unconcerned about the interesting tidbits of his long life Joe was about to read.

"How can you drink that stuff?" Joe asked disparagingly. "I'd end up with a hangover going through my head like a Cummings diesel. Or did all that practice with date wine make you immune?" Joe carefully bookmarked the current passage he was reading about Hecuba's Hetaerae and Hot Springs. He suspected fibbing.

"You have to prep by eating red meat. Otherwise, after a few of these you end up barking like a dog," Methos replied as he sat up on his knees in the sand, and stretched. "However, the design on that Hawaiian shirt you're wearing could make a lifeguard seasick," he said, smirking.

"I'll have you know that this is an auténticamente hecha en Mexico Sonoran Hawaiian shirt you're insulting."

"My eyes! They burn!" Methos laughed, donning his sunglasses with exaggerated caution. Methos, as usual, was unremarkable in jeans and an earth tone tee shirt.

"Researchers. No sense of the fine nuances of protective coloration in the field," Joe returned the insult.

"Field agent fashionista!" Methos tossed back, settling his butt and happily wallowing a new nest in the sand.

Joe caught Methos' sly glance over his sunglasses to see how far into the journal Joe's bookmark had progressed. "No backseat reading," Joe tightened his grip on the tome. The journal was a rare bribe from Methos to be allowed to horn in on Joe's 'vacation' in San Carlos, and Joe wasn't letting it out of his sight without finishing it.

"Myth was that Hecuba gave birth to nineteen children, can you imagine that? After awhile a woman might appreciate a man shooting blanks."

"After nineteen children, I'd shoot the messenger," Joe said fervently. "I can see why you had an inside track." Joe ran his fingers over the raised leather of the journal as if it was the fretwork of his first guitar. Then he scooted and settled the plastic beach chair around too keep Methos in the corner of one eye, and Methos' back covered with the other.

"You haven't gotten around to explaining how you found me, yet. Or why."

He watched Methos capture a piece of pineapple from his drink and take his time chewing the sweet fruit before answering. Once finished, a mischievous smile spread across his face. "Sorry, _how_ is a trade secret. Why? I'm your Watcher, of course. I belong to a super secret organization that watches The Watchers, interfering whenever we feel like it. Oh, and you better behave yourself or I'll tell my Boss on you, again."

The mostly nonsensical lie surprised a laugh out of Joe, and he allowed himself to relax, letting go some of his tension. He nodded to the waiter and practiced his Spanish, ordering another round and some carne asada. If Methos was going to stick his considerable nose into his business, he'd have to start pretending to eat and sleep semi-regularly.

"Which part of my act am I supposed to clean up, Super Watcher?" he asked with a slightly challenging smile. "Can't be my love life. I haven't cheated on my taxes. And it's been a whole week since I interfered with the boy-scout-who-will-not-be-named." More than a month, really, but Methos was going to have to work for that little detail. A long month indeed, since he'd been chucked out of the Clan MacLeod. Yet again. Joe had to get a new hobby. He was going to get a complex. Not to mention, a significant cut in pay.

"It's true. You've been a veritable monk. Hence my burning need to interfere," Methos beamed like a saint.

Joe immediately vowed to start sinning, if only out of self-preservation. His eyes focused on a group of riders well down the beach. It looked like they were lining up for a race to the bar. Joe discounted the shorter ponies, checked out a huge bay with an arched neck that must have been seventeen hands at the withers, then made his choice. "Fifty pesos on the blonde on the buckskin."

"On the buckskin! What about the bay? You're on." They watched with interest as the ponies and horses took off in a scrabbling unorganized sprint. "I think perhaps the boy-scout is having second and third thoughts about firing you. Guilt ridden git."

Joe winced. "So much for keeping that secret. It was a lousy secret, anyway." Being replaced as Mac's Watcher was a sore spot, right up there next to his own rapid reassignment a full ocean and continent away. "Apparently even ex-researchers in the wilds of Dalmatia know about it."

"Personally, I'm not fond of your replacement. She tends to over hear things I'd rather she didn't ‒ stay on your horse kid! ‒ such as my name." Methos swished his drink. "I guess it's my own fault, not training him to call me Adam in public."

"They don't train 'em like they used to," he allowed. "Not Watchers, not Immortals, either, I guess. Mac used to give me away to every stray acquaintance and bedfellow. I feel your pain," Joe empathized, digging his elbow into Methos' side to clearly demonstrate. Painfully, he hoped. "And you owe me a hundred pesos," he added, as the blonde with the buckskin tore across the finish line a good three lengths ahead of the bay. "Double for not training him to call you Adam from the get-go."

Methos sprawled in the sand, his laugh was throaty and genuine. "Drink up Joe, the rest of them are on me." After a few moments of companionable silence he said, "You know, we're making an assumption here that he is trainable. He never listens to me ‒ unless I'm bashing him, and then he has this tendency to bash back with vigor. I'm really too old to be wrangling with rowdy youngsters..." his voice trailed off as he took another sip of his fruity concoction.

"You're never bored riding herd on MacLeod," he reminded dryly. "And you don't fool me. I've seen you two do rowdy. The Montmartre, remember?"

Methos grinned. "The whole Montmartre remembers that night, Joe. We broke the fun meter. I think you personally busted the mainspring with that tourist from the States. What was her name, Delilah?"

"There's nothing wrong with the mainspring, thank you very much," Joe said evenly. He tugged his cap brim lower, feeling the sun overwarm his cheeks.

"We should do it again, when your vacation here is up and you and MacLeod kiss and make up. Can I Watch?"

"I'll send you the DVD. When hell freezes over," Joe said with enough of an edge to indicate the subject was closed.

"Still, all in all, it was much more pleasant with you watching him than Miss Snoop, Justine. Her ascendancy is going to result in some interesting entries in the MacLeod chronicles."

"I bet." Joe carefully kept his eyes on the milling horses down the beach, and the windboarders skipping off the surf, his face without expression. Having MacLeod's chronicles taken away and reassigned to a junior Watcher stung. But it was his own fault. Losing track of one's Immortal was bad enough. Being actively fired by your Immortal really went down badly with Headquarters. But Methos didn't need to know the true extent of his latest cockup.

"So tell me," Joe asked, tapping Methos' book and shifting the subject without apology. "What's with you stealing Daedalus' thunder? Flying kites off the Pharos Lighthouse? Hah. Likely story. Next thing, you'll be telling me Icarus plagiarized your design."

"Alexandria! Who wouldn't want to fly over that city? Oh I knew how to keep the Lighthouse fires burning! But it was just a kite. Alexandria was..." Methos sighed and watched the wind surfer's dance. "Demetrius' Library! 'The Place of the Cure of the Soul' ‒ birth of the scientific method..." He shook his head and sighed, Joe could see the regret on his face.

"Sorry, man," Joe did apologize this time. Losing MacLeod's chronicle wasn't even a fluttering candle to the cataclysmic losses in the Alexandrian bookburnings. Even if it was his own personal fluttering candle.

Methos straightened as a new line of horses formed up for another informal gallop. "Oh! Here they come again. Shall I take the bay again? Though I've always been partial to white horses. Maybe the kid can stay on this time."

"I'll take the gray if you take the white," a quick glance at the ponies and Joe made a snap judgment. "The white has a hammerheaded look about him." Not unlike certain Immortals he knew. Not unlike himself when he looked in the mirror, lately.

"The gray? The rider is grayer than the horse! She must be older than you are!"

"So what's your point?" Joe asked pointedly.

"Nothing," Methos acknowledged sagely. "I bow to your superior judgement. Where did you learn to pick the ponies, Joe?"

"Watching Bonanza every Sunday night, like every other kid my age in Chicago, where else?"

Methos shuddered. "Barbarian."

Joe smiled. "Thanks, bucko! Coming from you, that is a real compliment. And...they're off!" Far down the beach, hooves pounded into the wet sand.

"You know the Eagles' song lyric, 'you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave'? You really can't leave him, Joe. He holds on, even when pushing away."

"Only one pushing here is you, bub." Joe signaled to the bartender for another round of cerveza and the embarrassing fruity cocktail ‒ he wasn't going to go light if Methos was buying. Moreover, the passing of the Alexandria Library deserved a toast or eight. "Y dos tequilas, añejos, de Don Tacho Gran, por favor." He figured they would polish those off before Methos realized the dusty bottle on the top shelf behind the bar rivaled the best scotch whisky in rarity...and price.

"That Hotel California gig you mentioned? Been there, done that. Lousy pay and the tips sucked." Joe sat up straighter as the tequila arrived and the sound of hooves on sand signaled the final stretch. Nice, blue añejo tequila, nice blue water, nice blue sky. "They're neck and neck..."

Joe watched the gallop with an eye for the artistry, rather than the technique, so he didn't quite process the immediate consequences when the rider of the white lost a rein and the hammerheaded barb shied away from the windsurfers. Straight toward the bar. Specifically, straight toward Joe's table at the edge of the palapa. "Uh oh," Joe said with a very mortal sigh, and braced himself.

The drink that had just touched Methos' lips slipped from his fingers and dropped to the sand, as if returning at this key moment to its elemental origin in a cactus mist. Methos leaped to his feet to put himself between the runaway horse and his mortal friend. Dashing forward, he reached out to slap a sweaty shoulder to turn the charger's direction just enough to miss Joe, but taking Methos down.

In the time it took Methos to spring to his feet and run to the best angle to deflect the careening horse, Joe, in his own ungainly way, managed to force himself to his full height, squaring his shoulders. "Damnfool Adam, you're going to get yourself..." There was a thump. And a squishy tock, as trailing hoof lashed out. "...killed."

The horse flashed by Joe quite harmlessly, and avoided crashing into the bar by neatly planting all four hooves and dumping his rider over his head, before taking off into the thorn bushes and cactus tangle beyond the beach. Joe barely paid attention, keeping his eyes on Methos, but pointing to the ex-jockey at the base of the bar, calling "¡Ayúdelo! Help him!"

Then he grabbed a couple of napkins and edged away from the gathering crowd and made his way down into the soft sand to Methos' side. Bending over to dab what blood he could away before the crowd noticed them, he muttered accusingly, "You owe me another hundred pesos!"

*****  
_She was a vision of beauty! Long elegant legs, the color of summer milk. Smart, obedient, sure of foot and strong of heart. The pale horse carried him across desert to the end of the earth where the sand met the sea. And then they turned around and rode back._

The river, the river...Going back again, back again, never arriving... Dead, not dead.

"Ahh! Gods what hit me?" Someone pounded on his head and wouldn't let him sit up. "Joe? Stop that! Let me... just give me a second, a minute ‒ Oh Gods. Kicked in the head, bloody fates! No respect." The words deteriorated into dead language babble as he struggled to sit again.

"Only when you stop swearing in Akkadian. It sounds like a cat fight."

Methos stopped, and regrouped a few thousand phonemes. "It's OK Joe, let me up." Finally, Joe helped him lean into a sitting position. He peered at the hubbub around the tossed rider. "Don't think anyone noticed my indiscreet dying. Think I'd better switch back to drinking beer."

******  
"Stick to Latin if you can't manage the Anglo Saxon, willya?" Joe chastised as he eased Methos up as gently as he could. "At least with Latin I can spin the 'defrocked priest attains miracle recovery scam'." He'd ended up knocking himself down to sit next to the stricken Immortal in the sloping sands, hiding what he could, lying about the rest to keep the crowd away. Just like old times.

"That horse has an evil eye. Killed me on purpose."

"Kicked ya in the head, yeah. Like the horse and the three wives. And the yurt. You remember the story you told me about the yurt?" Joe asked anxiously. Immortals could react to head wounds...unpredictably. Like by talking in languages that had evaporated in the age of Homer. "What were you thinking, pulling that stunt, anyway?"

"It's OK, Joe. My head is especially hard. We didn't need to test yours."

Joe looked up at the sound of a heavy step, to see the hammerheaded barb scuff up next to them, looming like a thunderhead. From fetlock level, the stallion looked huge, ears pointed forward, nostrils flaring, snuffling. Blowing. Looking remarkably disappointed. Joe gently caught the reins in one hand and experimentally reached out to stroke the nose with the other. "What's Latin for 'Nice horsey'?"

"Canis victus." Methos grumbled. He caught Joe's fingers and moved them away from the horse's mouth. "Don't be waving those carrots in front of him. He doesn't deserve a treat."

One of the other young riders came over to claim the flighty horse's reins. Joe tried to block her view, but failed. She apparently caught sight of Methos' head, or of the bloody napkin in Joe's hand that he had used to dab at the head wound. "Mi Dios! ¿Estás bien?"

"Estoy bien. Solo un golpe." Methos' Spanish sounded a little muddled even to Joe's rusty ear, which worried him far more than a bit of blood from an already healed cut. She gave them a worried smile, nodded, and backed the horse out of their way.

"We'd better get moving before they call rescate on us," Joe muttered.

"Now how are we going to get up?" Methos asked then laughed. Joe did not laugh, getting up from the sand would not be easy. Methos' laughter broke off as a clear stab of pain flickered across his face. "This may take me a minute. Once we figure it out."

Joe stuffed the bloody napkin in Methos' tee shirt pocket "What do you mean, we?"

"Hey! This is a good shirt!" Then he actually looked and noticed the blood splatter. "Good thing it's a rusty shade." Loud sigh. "I need a beer."

Joe held Methos down, all too easily. "You need a keeper. Why the hell didn't you just push me out of the way?" he asked, delaying so his friend could have a few more key seconds to heal.

"Because the rider was aiming right at you, Joe," Methos rubbed his ear. "Guiding with his knees. No reins needed."

"That's paranoid, even for you, man. I haven't been here long enough to piss off anyone that bad, natural talent or no."

"Time to get out of here. Let's do this, Joe." Without giving Joe time to protest, Methos began to wobble to his feet, at the same time pulling him upward. Both giving and receiving support they struggled to a more or less standing position.

Joe then spent most of the next dozen steps propping Methos up and attempting to steer him back to his nice, solid plastic beach chair. A quick getaway wasn't in the cards. "I'd ask you what year it is and how old you are, but you'd probably lie about your age, anyway," he complained.

"Gods, I feel at least a thousand years old." But the words were accompanied by a smile. "Well that was fun! What's next on the holiday agenda?"

"You really do need to switch back to beer. You do realize 'canis' means 'dog', right?" he asked with less snark than worry.

"Dog food," Methos translated the Latin. "What happens to bad horses."

"Hunh." Joe's church Latin tended to flinch at Methos' home-grown accent. "How about you park your equus nates in this nice Corona chair here and drink this." Joe handed him his own Pacifico while he downed the last intact shot of tequila.

He tapped his sunglasses back on, and made a hard survey of the crowd behind the dark lenses. Most of the crowd were settling back, laughing at the close call, buzzing with armchair criticism about the riders or horses or their beer getting warm. But two dark-visaged men in white shirts and worn jeans on the edge of the crowd didn't seem to be drinking, or talking, or doing much of anything but looking at the horizon. The two looked just like their pictures in El Alacrán's file. The rider of the white charger had vanished, and Joe castigated himself for not paying more attention to his face and build, and whether he sported any tattoos.

"Dammitall," Joe sighed. He was going to have to go to work a lot sooner than he'd planned. And those plans didn't include Methos. Immortals disappeared within a certain radius of El Alacrán's stronghold. So did Watchers, for that matter, but that was a separate problem.

"Cursing was far more refined in my day," Methos remarked airily.

"Don't make me get out my Marine manual. How's your head?" he asked, noting the wince as Methos held his beer to the horseshoe shaped divot outlined in his hair in corral dust. "I can drive you to my place, let you shower, kick back, have a siesta. Maybe read your journal to you," he offered with his best Nurse Joe voice. That would get him kicked out of the apartment quick, and he could go to work.

Methos twisted around in his chair popping joints, focussing on the beer label, sniffing the contents. He seemed to be measuring his sensory intake. Joe figured that a mental beermeter made as good a baseline as any for a spot check in this particular case history.

After icing his head with it for a time, Methos drank the beer down as he finally acknowledged Joe's offer. "No, I think I'd rather go shopping for armament." This time his eyes followed Joe's as he resurveyed the crowd. "I'm feeling under-dressed, right off the plane. Care to tell me about it, Joe? Or are you gonna keep it to yourself all day? I thought this was gonna be a laid back holiday...Joe?"

Joe's knuckles whitened on his cane, as he desperately suppressed the urge to find out if he could replicate a headslap with the force and speed of a horse's hoof. He was quite sure he could hear his blood pressure rising. "Where. Is. Your. Sword?" Feeling a rising panic, Joe mentally counted their bullets, and came up with zero. Mexico held a very, very dim view of guns, and Joe's own concealed carry permit was locked up in a bureaucratic limbo. Bringing in a sword should have been cake in comparison.

"There's a shop I know. They sell machetes. Big ones. You get the car, I'll meet you in the parking lot." Joe tossed Methos the keys and stalked off, wrestling his temper under control. He found the blonde with the buckskin, and asked her a key question, and got more than he bargained for, and a phone number besides. He was almost to the car when he realized Methos had stuck him with the bill. Again. He diverted course just long enough to leave a generous pile of pesos on the bar. Playing a clueless tourist was one thing, stiffing a fellow bartender with the tab was unthinkable.

Setting his jaw, Joe struggled through the sand to the hard dirt of the parking lot to the only rental car with hand controls to be found in greater Guaymas. Harassing Methos out of the driver's seat, Joe slid in, dropping his own forehead to the steering wheel. "That's it. You've lost it. You never go anywhere unarmed. Did MacLeod suck your brains out through your dick?"

Methos rubbed his forehead. "Not that I recall ‒ of course if my brains were gone I wouldn't ‒ no, no, not since that time in Lyons, anyway," he shrugged and sighed loudly. He gave Joe a stern look and nodded toward the carryall he'd tossed in the back seat. "Don't worry about a sword. I always check mine through. What I had in mind was a gun ‒ after catching a look at your hard mortal shadows. Please tell me there isn't an Immortal pulling their strings?"

Joe was thinking that maybe it was a mistake to leave the bar. He could use more tequila. And the worm, too. He wouldn't forget the worm, this time. "Of course there's an Immortal. There's always an Immortal, in my line of work," he answered quietly, to try to roll back the irrational anger he felt when 'his' Immortals took unnecessary risks.

"You were supposed to be on vacation," Methos said brightly. "Not going to work."

"_You_ were supposed to be in Dalmatia, not Sonora. Besides. It's supposed to be temp work. So sue me." Back to business at hand. Armament. "The Watchers aren't ponying up with a Mexican gun permit this time, or I'd give you mine. I already made a couple of discreet inquiries. I've heard some sport fishermen who go between ports sometimes have a few anti-pirate persuaders. We can try the chi-chi bars near the marina," Joe sighed. "But honestly? We could bring an Abrams tank and still be low on firepower. El Alacrán likes his toys." There. That ought to get Methos' flight or flight reflex operating again.

"The Scorpion?" Slowly, a questioning expression was replaced by wide eyed alarm as Methos appeared to search his throbbing memory banks. A sharp intake of breath announced the injured Immortal had finally arrived at the file marked, 'Crazy-ass Immortals to be avoided,' where dwelt the name El Alacrán. "Oh." For the count of three he remained motionless, then he pulled out his cellphone and hit his number one speed dial.

Joe tried to grab the cell, but Methos fended him off with sharp flicks of his wrist. "Hey, that stings, dammit," he protested, and by then it was too late. Joe suspected that Methos' automatic reflexes might just be faster when he was half clocked, and his retaliatory parries weren't particularly well reined in. Instead of ending up clocked himself, Joe leaned back and squeezed the bridge of his nose, muttering, "At least Mac can't fire me twice. Shish kebab, maybe."

"Mac! Time to get your backside over here." Methos listened for a moment. "Because I asked so nicely." Methos actually smiled while listening to the next reply. "Sure. Whatever you want. Oh and there are a few necessities I need you to ship 'over-night.' My little green bag, and you might as well throw in my black bag ‒ just as a precaution." After he disconnected, Methos closed his eyes and rested his obviously still aching head.

Joe had actually been hoping for Methos to be predictable, here, and evaporate out of town. That would simplify matters immensely. He'd be left in peace to go through the test the Watchers had set up for him, pass or fail, and it would be all done.

The last thing he expected was for Methos to call MacLeod. "Fine time for you to develop a crusader complex," he insulted, then he got his own phone out, and hit the speed dial.

"Yeah, Mac. Sorry about that last call. He's three sheets to the wind. This isn't your problem. In fact, there is no problem. I'll send the miscreant back after he sleeps it off and comes to his senses."

When Mac started to interrupt, Joe overrode him. "Your ground rules. Your game. My bad. My problems are not your problems. Let's just leave it at that." Joe clicked the phone shut with finality.

 

*****  
"But Joe...what?...wait, I didn't mean..." MacLeod tailed off, as he realized Joe had hung up on him. Normally it was MacLeod who carried one of their arguments past the expiration date, not Joe. Joe invariably extended the peace offering first.

MacLeod closed his phone, puzzled and more than a little alarmed. It was very rare for Methos to ask for help directly. "Help me," from Methos normally sounded like, "Go away, MacLeod, I'll fight my own battles, MacLeod, or see ya later, MacLeod." Methos sounded more like Joe on a mission, and Joe sounded like Methos, planning one of his six-month constitutionals to Tibet. Except Methos didn't do missions, and Joe didn't do Tibet.

He glanced out his ski lodge room window at the snowy slopes, the stark cold of his breath frosting the glass as he imagined his friends in sunny Mexico.

MacLeod worried about Methos, though he realized how ridiculous that was, worrying about someone forty-six centuries older than yourself. Still, there it was. He wished that Methos would let him know what was going on over there, wished he could get straight answers. But Methos was never overly forthcoming.

It wasn't as if they had an exclusive claim on each other. Their time together, though intense, occurred randomly when they both happened to be in the same place. So it was futile to make demands, though he sometimes still tried.

Methos had been off for months on an archaeological dig in Dalmatia prior to his excursion to Mexico. So MacLeod had gone skiing. And despite his periodic lurid updates to Methos, his occasional lover refused to be jealous about his ski lodge carousing. At least Amanda had always pretended to jealousy, though after a couple centuries he realised she was merely stroking his ego. Minx. Still he worried about that independent irritant, Methos, who wasn't even giving him the opportunity to do an interrogation.

And he worried about Joe. Sure they'd had another blow up, but that was as predictable as the sun rising tomorrow morn. Why the hell did Joe have to go all the way to Mexico for a vacation, when there were perfectly fine Mediterranean beaches so much closer? Joe hated flying.

What the hell were those two up to? Methos had claimed he was just checking on Joe, not off on a quest to start a conflagration.

Damned if he would spare the time detouring back to Paris for Methos' gear. Just the idea of finding where Methos had them hidden in his latest apartment was daunting enough, let alone finagling them through a shipping service to Mexico. No, the medical bag and armament bag would remain hidden amongst Methos' book middens. MacLeod smiled, musing that perhaps the lack of both would cancel each other out.

It took him all of ten minutes to grab his passport, a change of clothes and be gone without a backward glance at the snowy slopes or a goodbye to the ladies of the lodge. Interestingly enough, his new young Watcher shadow either lacked Joe's contacts or his talent for insomnia, allowing him to leave Europe quite unwatched. He'd have to complain to Joe. Watchers, these days.

*****  
"That was a bit rude, Joe. Especially since Mac has my arsenal." Methos tried out a killing glare, but Joe appeared unquailed by its dire power, so he rested his eyelids to recharge. His head still throbbed.

"My problems are not your problems, Methos," Joe repeated, softly. "Mac was always right about that. This is something I have to do myself."

"Well I can tell when I'm unwanted." Methos opened his eyes again wearily. Joe had his jaw set, he appeared both stubborn and ungrateful. So Methos opened the car door and climbed out onto his feet, wobbling a bit, slowly fighting the remaining dizziness. He shut the front door, opened the back retrieving his carryall, shut that door then walked off in the direction of town.

"Hey, where are you going?" Joe asked as Methos' dignified retreat was spoiled when he tripped over a rut in the hardpan. He heard Joe slap the car into gear and gun the throttle, then he pulled around and parked in front of him. "Get in, before somebody runs you over."

Methos looked at him with all the expression he would waste on a rock in the road. "Such as you?" Then he fastidiously walked around the front of the car and proceeded down the narrowing dirt track.

Joe crashed the car over a couple of helpless mesquite bushes, and blocked the road again. "Get in before the Scorpion's men realize you're a sitting duck out here, dammit."

Again, Methos stalked around the car with wobbly dignity, not wasting breath on an answer.

Methos heard Joe use a swear word that he himself had taught Joe. It was definitely a good swear word. In fact, that particular word had once started three wars in Scythia. He had to remember to tell Joe about that. In a decade or so.

Joe continued destroying the paint job of his rather expensive hand-control rental car, scooting between two thorn bushes and over a cholla to again block his progress. "Come on, willya? We look like a lover's spat out here, and I'm too damn old for that. Get in, and I'll tell you why Mac fired me."

If there was one thing Methos could do, it was walk. Walking was transportation at its most dependable, and a pox on horses. Normally he could walk all day long, a nomadic superstar, however at this moment in time he had balance issues. He felt the electric bite of his quickening mending him ‒ a wonderful blessing to an Immortal ‒ but when it's the inside of your head that's buzzing, ambulation turned iffy. Oh well, it would be all better soon, if only Joe would stop trying to run him over.

Joe's promise to tell him what caused the rift between he and Mac sank into his awareness. Ah curiosity, an old weakness. Curious to know if Joe's story and Mac's lined up, and mindful that curiosity killed, he deigned to climb back into the passenger seat. This time he kept his carryall on his lap as if to make a quick escape. The small trickle of blood running from his ear had completely stopped and was drying on his neck causing a tickling itch that he scratched at. If the roar would just stop he would be all better.

He could see how Joe might think that his help would be less than stellar at the moment, but if he gave him another minute, he healed real fast, faster than anybody, most times. If they just wouldn't nail iron to horses hooves.... He leaned back his head and closed his eyes again. "You and Mac are both pains in the arse."

"I'm honored to be included in such elevated company," Joe allowed. He put the car in gear and aimed it for the motel. They were too exposed here. Joe talked as he drove, checking the rearview mirror for followers.

"You were off at that dig in Dalmatia, and Mac was hanging around the bar. He was ambushed going back to the barge by some wet-behind-the-ears dickhead who boasted he'd taken you out in the Dalmatian hills, and now he was coming for the Highlander." Joe rolled his shoulders, as if trying to take out the tension. "Mac took him out. No problem. The idiot learned his fighting skills from Bruce Lee movies. No shit. I found the DVDs later when I searched his car."

"He'd have been better off studying Monty Python."

"Yeah, 'Run away! Run away!' " Joe agreed, black humor showing. "Anyways, after the fight, Mac charged back to the bar. He was..." Joe picked his words carefully.

"...somewhat angry?" Methos offered helpfully.

"I haven't seen MacLeod that pissed off since the Galati screwup," Joe confessed obligingly. "He figured me and the Watchers had blown your cover, somehow. That someone was using the chronicles to get to you. Since only you, me and Amy theoretically knew you were at the dig, you know? It was a logical assumption."

Methos had to give MacLeod that much. It was a logical assumption. Wrong, but logical.

"You know MacLeod is cranky after a Quickening. It passes."

"Yeah, sure, when you or Amanda are around to kiss it and make it better," Joe pointed out uncharitably. "Anyway, I showed him the brand new email you'd sent just that afternoon, talking about Scythian incursions and gambling runes. You were fine. Mac whipped out his cell phone, and sure enough, you were there, number one on his speed dial. You cooed at each other for a while. I made a remark about transcribing it for the chronicle. That was a bad idea, in retrospect, poking at Mac's sore spot."

"And he went all Highland chieftain on your arse, and hurt your feelings."

"Yah think? And shut up about my feelings. This isn't about me."

Methos watched with interest as Joe's cheek twitched. "You know, you do that thing with your face when you lie to yourself, too?" he offered helpfully.

"Shut up." Inexplicably, Joe laughed. "Anyway. After a few choice words, he took off, to find you, I assumed. Logical, right?" Methos saw Joe was carefully keeping his words light. "But he was just gone. Off the radar. I lost him for...three weeks and five days." Methos knew that three weeks was the current limit the Watchers allowed for noncontact with one's Immortal. After that, they were reported officially 'lost', and the Watcher had the responsibility to explain exactly why.

"In the mean time, I checked out Bruce Lee's modus operandi. He was a gadget nut. Turns out he monitored Mac's cell phone from a wireless connection in his car. He figured claiming to have killed Mac's lover would give him a surprise psychological advantage."

"Behold, the fatal flaw of the emo generation."

"Oh, and to him, Methos was just a screwy name. He'd never even heard of the damned oldest Immortal in the world."

"Never heard of me?" Methos interrupted, shocked.

"Kids these days. You'd think he'd google you, at least. Anyway, by the time I realized MacLeod wasn't going to just drop in the bar and pretend nothing happened, Mac had jumped too many trains. It turned out he was doing the wedeln in Val d'Isere. I didn't find him in time. That Justine kid was the one who tracked him down a week later. She gets the prize. Pretty embarrassing, huh?"

Methos observed that Joe still colored at the humiliation, and he mercifully steered the subject back to himself. "Never heard of me! Humph! What are Immortals teaching their students now-a-days? How can a kid even understand a Methos joke, if they don't know who he is?"

After this outburst Methos sat quietly, mulling in silence while Joe drove them away from the beach. He divided the important from the extraneous variables in this puzzle, and realized that it was more difficult than usual for him to determine what manner of evil plot he and Joe had fallen into. Much more difficult. It was then that he pulled out his wallet, and from it a small planning calendar. Most of the months were blank, without any appointments written in the day squares. Methos put his pen to the task of writing in names (mostly feminine names) on five or six days of each month. When he finished December he smiled with satisfaction and put away the calendar.

"OK. Let me see if I've got this figured out. Mac goes skiing. You can't find him. And you ‒ now you're in Mexico looking for a different Immortal." His eyes open wide. "Please tell me you haven't been reassigned to this nut case!"

"It wasn't that I couldn't find him," Joe said quietly. Methos recognized deflection when he heard it. "It was that I didn't look for him." Joe drove them around the Tetakawi pass slowly as they came across a number of stray horses and cows. "Mac is really sensitive about his clan, you know? You're one of the few he has left. And the Watchers hit all his buttons‒he lost Tessa because of a Hunter, Darius and Galati, and nearly Fitz and Amanda, and now you. I couldn't blame him for cutting out. I figured, this time I wouldn't push it for a couple of weeks. Then it was too late, the trail was cold."

Cold as the French Alps, Methos mused. He wagered Joe had carried that frozen nugget of guilt since Galati. Methos vowed one day he would pour enough Scotch into Joe to wash that nugget away. One day.

"As for El Alacrán, not that it's any of your business, it's a Performance Review. You know, a fitness evaluation. They can't keep a regular Watcher on him, but they do like to keep tabs, so they periodically send down field agents to get the lay of the land, and rate their performance. The Tribunal assigns the task. Pass/fail. Simple, really. Pass, and I get my field agent license back."

That was the business. Fail, and...that was the business, too. Methos had to admire the Watchers' logic. It was an elegant solution, really. Joe couldn't complain, since he'd given MacLeod too much leeway. He always had. And since MacLeod had repudiated Joe outright as his Watcher, he couldn't complain down the line if Joe happened to be lost in action elsewhere. In the line of duty. No matter that the 'fail' rate on El Alacrán ran to one hundred per cent.

"Just doing the job?" he asked dryly.

"Just doing the job." Joe didn't meet his eyes. As he pulled into San Carlos, all business, he asked, "Food or sleep? There's a carne asada stand just down the street from the motel."

"Food would be good, Joe." Methos sighed and closed his eyes just for a moment, then forced himself to sit up straight in a good imitation of alertness.

Food ought to return him to the five thousand year old's version of next-to-new. He'd passed his own, "Are your brains still scrambled?" test by quickly writing down the birthdays of all of his wives in his planner. With marbles all accounted for he just needed to refuel and then he should be once again capable of devising devious plans, if not running marathons.

They stopped at the stand Joe had suggested and ordered fresh fish and crab tacos. Sitting at a tiny sidewalk table, enjoying the afternoon sun, they looked to be tourists without a care. Joe was hardly hungry it seemed, but Methos devoured his and ended up finishing off Joe's too when offered. He could see Joe snickering at him and hated to break the comfortable mood by pointing out their latest dilemma. So he waited.

They ended up talking horses. "There was some Andalusian in that war horse," Methos mused. "Maybe you can find out where it was trained."

"And there I went and forgot to ask for the license number on that cayuse," Joe grumbled.

"You still didn't tell me where you learned to pick the ponies, Joe," Methos teased. "Have you been making secret trips to Emerald Downs?"

"You still owe me for two races, amigo," Joe reminded, playing with a tortilla chip.

"Shit! I was supposed to pay the bar tab at the Soggy Peso."

Joe shrugged. "You were occupied."

"Don't be gallant, Joe, people plow over you when you're gallant."

"Like you and horses?" Joe was snickering at him, again. "You know I'm always an easy touch after an assassination attempt."

"Confess, Joe, you had inside information. I saw you talking with the blonde on the buckskin."

"If I tell you all my secrets, you'll get bored and move back to Bora Bora."

Methos grinned. Joe knew him so well. "Not to worry! I'll spring for the mariscos!" he leaned back, happily satisfied, and pulled out his wallet and laid a few bills on the table.

Joe shook his head, scooped up the bills, and handed them back to Methos, pulling out his own wallet again. "At least it wasn't shekels. We'll get your Euros changed to pesos at the Banamex later."

Methos peered at the offending tender, annoyed. "Used to be I could spend a Roman coin in any tavern from Carthage to Londinium."

"Yeah, yeah, the good old days before Constantine screwed things up," Joe agreed amiably and left his own pesos.

Methos and Joe left the outdoor table and returned to Joe's rental car. Methos attempted to slide into the drivers seat, but Joe kept him moving along to the passenger's side. "Hey, buddy, I had to pay extra for hand controls, lets not waste my money, or take our lives into our hands with your scrambled brains."

Deciding to overlook the slight to his driving reflexes, Methos summed up his understanding of the situation, "So what you need is to take a picture of this Scorpion fellow, without him noticing?"

"A few pictures of the rancho, the man, the emplacements," Joe shrugged. "Yeah. Easy. See? No worries. You can call MacLeod back and tell him it was all a misunderstanding. Heck, you hurry, you can meet him in Val d'Isere for the spring corn snow. I bet you look fetching in stretch Bogners."

"I gave up skiing for Lent. In 1549."

"Ah, before the invention of apres ski," Joe observed sagely, as he pulled up in front of El Motel Creston, a row of gleaming white rooms next to an empty pool. He eased out to open the door to number seven, waving Methos into the tiny room. "Watch out for the guitar," Joe warned sternly.

Given the choice, Methos elected to trip over the cooler, instead. The tile floor was cool and soothing. He assumed Joe's fall from grace with the Watchers also included a cut in per diem, if the size of the room was any indicator. "How the mighty have fallen," he murmured to a somnolent gecko hiding under the bed. At least he hoped it was a gecko.

"I actually had a cockeyed plan going before you got clocked, you know," Joe said, annoying Methos by holding out a hand to help him up. "I'm still bummed at that crowbait for interrupting. I would have loved to see you up on a horse." Joe smiled ruefully. "But Mac would be pissed all over again when he found out."

"I wouldn't rat you out," Methos declared loyally.

"You already did," Joe pointed out with a sideways smile devoid of rancor. "Get some rest, we'll take care of Mac later," he absently waved him toward the single bed, apparently all too aware that after major head injuries Immortals needed food and sleep, and could zone out for hours once they found a place to hole up.

Though Methos made a point of not following any predictable rules, he tentatively tested the hard mattress, considering an exception. "I'm not going to steal your bed, Joe."

Joe just settled himself firmly in the desk chair, getting out his notebook, clearly intent on his own agenda. "Mi motel es tu motel, conk out space is on me," he said firmly. "Cerveza in the cooler, sunset margarita cruise at six."

"I see you writing, over there. You'd better leave out the part where I got knocked on my bum. I get final edit."

"Dream on, buster."

"At least share the number of the blonde on the buckskin."

"You _did_ hit your head hard. Have a beer. It might perk you up."

"Tomato juice in beer is just wrong." Methos searched the cooler for a plain beer. "I don't think I'm up to the Margarita cruise, Joe. If I'd had a few more of those rum drinks I might not have intercepted the runaway equine...now _that_ would have really messed with your plans for photographing the Scorpion. You know scorpions are considered good luck in some cultures? You need a camera hidden in your cane. You know I really hate skiing? If I had a dollar for every time I broke my neck skiing...and Mac knows! Well, I'd rather lie on the beach any day. Actually my favorite vacations are to museums and bookstores. Ever been to Hay on Wye, Joe?" Methos talked faster and faster as he lay down on the bed, after failing to find a beer he wanted to drink. "You know, Joe, if you don't run off on me while I become unconscious I'll consider calling off the Mac."

"It's a deal," Methos heard in the distance, just before he allowed himself to fade into black.

*****

  


The Immortal finally wound down like an old clock. The next sound Joe heard was soft snoring. "Without the tomato juice, how would I get my vegetables?" he said with a soft smile. He heaved himself up and shuffled to the bed, tweaking off Methos' shoes and twitching the curtains shut against the westering sun. "By the way, thank you for saving my life. Again. Buddy."

He was sorely tempted to sneak out and make a run at the assignment while Methos slept, but leaving Methos vulnerable and unguarded was only a last ditch option if he could be sure it drew their stalker away. Besides, he'd made a promise. He made sure Methos' sword was unpacked and positioned on the floor nearest his right hand, then braced a chair against the solid hardwood door.

It was utterly inadequate in the face of a determined attack, he knew, but the best he could do until he could finagle his Immortal out of El Alacrán's territory. "Some vacation, hey? And I never even got to ask you to teach me how to ride."

Then he got down to work. On a yellow pad he roughed out all his notes on El Alacrán and what little he knew of his proclivities. He mapped out the ranch, the surrounding country, the sea approaches (hence the margarita cruise) and the few known tracks and trails around the compound. On a separate page, he started a list of Watchers that knew he had been assigned to beard the Scorpion in his den. The list was very short, and illuminating. If Joe disappeared, only a handful of Watchers would know where to look. Even fewer would bother. He doubted any of them would know where to send flowers.

Joe wrapped himself in dark thoughts, and Watched.

*****  
_Hooves, rocks, axes, pommels, 2x4s, books, lamps, rolling pins, beersteins...all objects in line with missing chunks of time...floating free..._

They'd been chased for days. Soon they would drop from exhaustion. He was armed with only a knife against Darius' army. A hole 'neath a rock, a desperate stroke through the heart, Mercy stopped his quickening,and the army passed on by...

The air was warm, with the scent of the sea. He opened his eyes ‒ Joe's room ‒ oh yes, kicked in the head again. He reached out. His sword was right where it should be. Stretching, sitting up, he focused and found Joe writing on a notepad ‒ plotting plots no doubt.

"All better! Ready to paint the town? How about that cruise?"

Joe blinked, and peered at Methos suspiciously. "All better, eh? I think that's what you said the last time, but in Etruscan. You've been talking in your sleep, you know." Joe stacked his papers and more surreptitiously closed up the opened blade of his Swiss Army knife.

Methos decided he'd better not laugh.

Joe tossed the stack of papers on the bed. "All that I have on El Alacrán, including the final reports on the failed missions. All the roads previous Watchers have used to overlook the ranch. A couple of 4X4 trails. Boat approaches. Boat landings are a bad idea, by the way ‒ El Alacrán finagled a deputation from the DEA and the Federales to interdict any traficante on his lands. Very convenient for disappearing trespassers."

"As far as I can see, there's only two routes previous Watchers haven't used." Joe got up and stretched, clearly having stiffened during the hours of his watch. "I'll let you figure out the first." Joe rummaged around his luggage and pulled out another shirt, garish as the first, and washed up and changed in the tiny bathroom while Methos read. Then he propped up his guitar near the door and watched silently again until Methos felt the stare and looked up.

"Oh. My. Gods. I'm beginning to read your mind. And it's a really scary place, Joe. Fly over. A kite! I could fly over and take pictures. That would be so cool ‒ and so stupid ‒ not that that's ever stopped me before. Gods. Brilliant!"

Methos got up and paced the room in a tight circle, one hand pinching his lower lip and the other clutched across his chest. Occasionally he would wave a hand in the air, forming signs more ancient than he.

Abruptly he stopped and suggested,"We could take your cruise, of course. With a telephoto lens you might get a few good shots. Give that a try? Then go for the gold. Man oh man, I can imagine the look on Mac's face when we tell him about this adventure. He doesn't own me, Joe. I was a Watcher for years. Hell I invented them ‒ er ‒ the internet. Never mind. Let's try that and if it doesn't give you what you want I become one with Icarus. I assume there's some place 'round here that sells or rents hang-glider gear to reckless tourists?"

"Next to the liquor store, where else?" Joe answered truthfully, not even bothering with sarcasm.

Methos paced some more, obviously excited by the possibility of flying over El Alacrán's ranch. Somewhere in the back of his mind he scolded himself for getting off on doing something that would push Mac's button, and he knew it wasn't Joe's intention to set him off like a teenager in rebellion, it just seemed like it would be so much fun.

"I wonder if they would take shots at me in the air?"

"Ya think?" Joe somehow hadn't gotten caught up in his enthusiasm. "You'd end up with so many bullets in you metal detectors would be going off three states away," Joe said in disgust. " You've had green eggs and ham for brains ever since that hoof tagged you. I can see me explaining it to Mac now...'Gee, Mac, he was doing so great until the RPG got him...' "

"MacLeod would understand. He's a very understanding kind of guy," Methos mocked. "I read it in his Chronicle." He knew Joe didn't take well to being mocked.

Joe didn't disappoint. "You do realize that this situation is exactly why Mac fired me in the first place? Me dragging you into the line of fire because of Watcher business? And he's right. Just forget it, you know? If you won't teach me how to ride a horse, I'll get someone else." Joe pushed the chair away from under the door and stalked out of the room. "I've got a gig. Don't wait up for me."

Methos grabbed his coat and sword, and went after Joe. He paced beside him for a few minutes shaking his head as he did so. Joe seemed intent on ignoring him.

"OK, Joe, so I can't read your mind. So sue me. You want to ride a horse in to his ranch? Hmmm. What I see as the hard part will be getting on board. Falling off should be no problem at all. Where you got the horses stashed?"

Joe clearly couldn't outrun Methos, so he stopped and faced him. "What's so damn hard about it? Just like driving a car. Accelerate, brake. Giddyup, whoa. It's not as if I don't know how to fall, already. There's a guy out in the beach ranchos, will rent me a caballo bonito, guaranteed."

"You do know that used car salesmen are directly descended from horse dealers, don't you, Joe? If you insist on making like Randolph Scott, at least let me pick out the horse. I'll make sure and get one with a leather bucket seat."

"You still owe me three hundred pesos, buddy. We'll see who picks out the horse."

They were coming out of the dark sidestreet and approaching a cantina on the main road. Cars were parked haphazardly all around the bar without any apparent concern for blocking one another in for the night. "It looks like a good house. What part of your plan involved buskering on the Sonoran coast?"

"The 'vacation' part of the plan," Joe admitted, looking very realistically like a man who badly needed a holiday. "And unless you have an objection to me picking up some change on the side, I have to get a move on. Cornelio is already tuning up the band."

"Joe‒you've played the best clubs in Paris. What are you doing in a dive with concrete floors, palm fronds for a roof and no walls?"

Joe stopped, looking puzzled. "A gig is a gig. And Cornelio graduated from the equivalent of Juilliard in Mexico City. Who cares about the roof? We're going to blow it off, anyway."

"Playing trop-rock for pesos?" Methos prodded.

"Keep it civil," Joe warned. "And if you request 'Margaritaville,' I'll behead you with my guitar pick." He hesitated at the entrance, and lowered his voice. "Besides, I'm going to need a fallback job after the Watchers tumble to the fact both you and Mac followed me here," he said with a fatalistic grin.

"You told him to stay in Val D'Isere and sharpen his edges and wax his bottoms, if I remember correctly."

"Not exactly my wording," Joe pointed out, somewhat scandalized. He reached up to feel for the bump on Methos' head. "You still have your own personally inscribed petroglyph horseshoe?"

Methos grabbed Joe's wrist instinctively, even though it didn't hold a blade. Joe rocked, and caught his balance as Methos immediately transferred his grip to Joe's shoulder to steady him. "Sorry. Muscle memory."

"My mistake," Joe straightened and shrugged, eyeing Methos more carefully but not giving up an inch of ground. "Look, we both know Mac is on his way to rescue you from the clutches of yet another Watcher plot. By this time tomorrow, he'll be whisking you away like sweet Polly Purebred. Just think of the fun you'll have with that scenario!"

"Polly Purebred!" For a moment he was angry; had Joe just called him Mac's bitch? Sure sounded like it. Then it struck him as funny, once he started laughing he couldn't stop until his head started to hurt again. "All right, enough of that." He fished out his cell phone and dialed MacLeod.

"Hey, there!....Oh, fine....Nada....No, won't be necessary, we decided on a less dramatic route...Yeah....Yeah, Joe won't let me blow anything up this time, spoil sport....I'll see you next month maybe....Don't worry, we're fine....You've got all those snow bunnies keeping you warm....I'll never tell....Thanks, I'll remember you said that!...and remember the auction Friday." He snapped the phone shut and turned back to Joe.

"There. MacLeod is on stand down. Like I promised. Now maybe you can stop treating me like something you're trying to scrape off your shoe. Ready for a beer?"

"Is that a rhetorical question? And you're still buying, buddy," Joe acknowledged with a surrendering grin. "You grab us a table, and I'll see what Cornelio's got on the songlist."

"How about 'Last Mango in Paris?' "

"What's Etruscan for 'asshole?' "

Methos harassed him all the way to the stage with cheerful suggestions.

*****

For a moment at the door, Joe thought he might have succeeded in getting Methos angry enough to abandon his peculiarly uncharacteristic streak of chivalry. It was really beginning to cramp Joe's style. After all, it was cheating. On the other hand, maybe that was why Methos seemed so tickled about the whole humiliating scenario. Deep down, he still had a bronze age sense of humor, after all. Cheating was...fun. He probably figured that cheating on Joe's fitness test was not only fun, but practically an amoral imperative. No wonder he wasn't listening to reason.

And that illumination made Joe crack a smile, too. Methos had no qualms about hauling the Highlander a half a globe away on what would probably turn out to be a snipe hunt. And Joe had no doubt that six hours after Methos' first phone call to MacLeod, the Highlander had probably already taken the train to Frankfurt and he was about to lift off on the first transatlantic flight with connections to Phoenix or Mexico City. The chances he'd be called off now were virtually nil, no matter what Methos told MacLeod.

To be perfectly honest with himself, Joe would feel better if MacLeod were around to help look out for Methos while the bats in his belfry settled. Joe didn't have the firepower to stop a charging vole, at this point, much less El Alacrán and his posse. The biggest drawback was going to be Justine, the eager new Watcher MacLeod would be trailing behind him like a bridal train.

His best bet to get his assignment done without Immortal interference was to put plan B into action. The only problem with plan B was, Joe had no control over the timing. Moreover, Joe was getting a little too old to be ducking his mothering buddies like a grounded teenager. Still, out of habit, he surveyed the bar for quick exits. La Rana's Cantina was filling up fast with an eclectic mix of locals, tourists, repatriates and expatriates speaking Spanish, Spanglish, English, and in one far corner, a local dialect, probably Seri or Yaqui.

Joe looked at the natives a little more closely, recognizing the taciturn features. His shadowers from the beach were now dressed in snowy white shirts and the spotless white straw hats nearly every vaquero in the area wore. Sitting with them, yet apart, a solemn woman in a sheer sable blouse toyed with a drink. Mature and confident, with Yaqui features and an academic bearing, her figure attracted his eye again and again. Yoeme, he corrected himself, remembering his research. Early notes in El Alacrán's thin Chronicle claimed he sheltered renegade bands of natives from both the U.S. and Mexican cavalries up through the second World War. Now they apparently helped shelter him.

Joe let his gaze linger a little too long upon the woman ‒ he earned himself a blazing look so filled with charged personal animosity that it almost knocked him over. Then she rose to her feet and strode out of the bar, giving the stage the widest possible berth.

"Joeboy, have you lost your touch," he muttered sadly to himself. "Women you've never laid eyes on before walk out on you." Battling the urge to follow her and find out why, he settled onto the stage and got to work.

The set started off with a bang, and got rocking from there. Cornelio had also invited a taciturn Canadian harmonica player to stand in, and he covered the occasionally muddy bass beat with some fine riffs and stingers. Cornelio was generous with the solos, and Joe got to pour the last four weeks of professional disgrace and personal failure into his music, letting his frustration and his fears for Methos fuel an extra edge in his fretwork.

Joe kept tabs on Methos between songs, making sure he stayed well to the other side of the bar from El Alacrán's birddogs. He was so busy watching his own watchers that he didn't keep the strictest eye on his gear. At the end of the set Joe opened his guitar case to find an engraved business card, and a generous roll of pesos. On the back of the card was an invitation to play at a private party, that very night. On the front of the card was a stylized scorpion.

Plan B, it was then.

*****  
Sequestered at a corner table without a clear view of the stage, Methos gazed into the flame of a white candle nestled in a red glass bowl. He munched on corn tortillas from a basket and sampled four tasty varieties of salsa while nursing his cerveza with a slice of lime.

Ah, the embarrassing relation, stashed in the corner. No problem, he could do inconspicuous better than anyone. Well except for that annoying Immortal buzz, which tended to be hard to tuck in around yourself, so as to imitate an innocent Immortal newbie, after your daily skull fracture. The rattling ancient buzz that he'd last allowed loose to greet the young Duncan MacLeod when he walked into his Paris apartment a dozen years ago, now ran loose like an unconstrained white horse. Ah, well, any Immortal familiar with sanity would find an engagement elsewhere. Ah, sanity, fleeting dreambitch.

One area of the cantina Methos did have a line of vision on was the side wall running to the left corner off stage where instrument cases were stashed, including one of Joe's with a distinctive sticker from the West Seacouver Arts Festival. He would have to ask Joe how he wrangled this cantina gig. It wouldn't do to let Joe get away with ducking his questions. He was getting too good at it as it was.

Sinking into the auditory feast of blues music and the multi-language babble he felt the scholastic glow he experienced whenever he found himself in an edgy linguistic melting pot. The Yoeme patois was especially sweet. Over a century had gone by since he'd last heard the cadences, while riding with Butch and the Kid.

His bruised brain found ease in the music, though Joe's missive informed him of the Watcher's displeasure with himself, the world, and Methos. That insidious vibe of otherness peeked on the horizon and he deliberately turned his mind away. There be white horses and death.

By the time Joe finished playing, Methos had eaten all the chips and he had given up on keeping the flies from the salsa. Flies on Death – if only he could keep from nodding off...

*****  
Joe stashed the business card in his shirt, and shared the unexpected tip with the band. Cornelio nodded his thanks, seriously impressed. "El Alacrán...como se dice...patrón de la musica. He likes the blues, man."

Joe had read the same in his deep background research, and in fact had counted on it, but was more than a little surprised to see Plan B get a bite so quickly. Still jazzed by the set, Joe searched the crowd for Methos, his temporary high freezing when he saw him threatening to do a face plant in the tortilla chips. This was not a good sign. Moving as fast as he dared on the uneven tiles, he passed the front door and was stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Señor Dawson, may I have the honor of being your driver tonight?" It was one of the men from the beach bar. Beyond his shoulder, Joe could see a spotless white truck with four doors and absurdly high suspension. Joe's spine prickled. Now was definitely not the time to draw attention to his friend. In fact, it was time to draw attention away, fast.

Dawson squared his shoulders and shook off the hand. "I'll need to tell the band I won't make the next set. And I don't go anywhere without my guitar."

Dusting off his dignity, he returned to the stage and beckoned to Cornelio as he carefully put away his gear. "I need you to wake up my sleepy friend over there and give him this message right after I leave. Be careful, though. Está muy borracho. He bites."

There wasn't much time to write.

"My ride's here. Pass or fail, tell Mac when he gets here I stuck to the honor code, willya? He has a thing about that.

PS...Delfino rents horses down by La Manga, I hear. Maybe Mac will like a ride.

PPS...Don't behead Cornelio. He's just the piano player."

*****  
Thunder of hooves, the wild horses running across the plain. There! There she is! The one he wanted. Hooves pounding to the beat.

*****  
"Señor?" Cornelio patted the nodding man's shoulder, then jumped back as Joe's friend displayed reflexes a drunk man would never be capable of – one hand sliding into his coat before opening his eyes, glint of knife, eyes open, recognizing Cornelio, and the weapon disappearing all in an instant. The band leader dropped the note on the table and backed away. "Se tiene que ir."

*****  
Methos grabbed the note, already guessing the message, and made his way outside, rapidly, zero sign of inebriation.

He looked up and down the dark street. Joe was gone.

Taking stock of his positive inventory he had his sword, wallet, and cell phone. On the negative, his carryall with his extra clothes and essentials was locked in Joe's room and it was too late at night to rent a room of his own.

He walked to a second cantina that had a good street view and ordered a beer that he didn't drink, but instead read Joe's note several times.

Joe was determined to do this himself. At this point all Methos could do was wish him luck, since running after him would likely get Joe killed.

Joe seemed to still think MacLeod would be coming to Mexico. Hopefully Plan B was a good one, because the Highlander should be heading for Paris where he would be attending an auction next week to bid on an old book both of them wanted.

Leaving the bar, he trekked to the beach near Motel Creston where he found a lounge chair to recline in till dawn. Maybe then he'd see a man about a horse.

*****  
Cornelio left the bar after the moon was past it's zenith, and walked the hard-packed sand of the beach back to his girlfriend's apartment. He was surprised to see Joe's dangerous friend had appropriated a lounge chair from one of the beach houses and was huddling like a hermit crab against the Sonoran winter chill.

Cornelio stopped warily, and pondered. Drunk and dangerous was a bad combination, but he was Joe's friend, and he might be lost. Cornelio could guide him back to Motel Creston. If he behaved.

He settled for tossing a couple of stones at the foot of the lounge chair. If he was too drunk to notice, he was probably too drunk to move anyway.

"It takes better aim than that to stone a man."

"If I had wanted to hit you –." Cornelio's voice trailed off.

"Cornelio?"

"Sí. You lose your way?"

"No – No tengo la llave – Joe had the room key on him."

"You will get cold."

"I'm OK. I've slept under the stars more nights of my life than indoors. I'd rather be here than in la cárcel for breaking into the room."

"I understand, but I can speak for you at the motel, get you into the room."

"Thanks, Cornelio, but I'll be OK –"

"I understand. I've been without a roof myself. Let me help you. Perhaps mañana you will be outside again. But you don't have to be tonight. And I don't want Joe angry with me."

*****  
"Joe doesn't –" Methos began to refuse again, but stopped. "OK. Gracias." He decided to go with what the Fates seemed to be commanding him to do. And Cornelio obviously was a kind man.

They walked back together toward the motel mostly in silence. At least this way he could get the map Joe made of the horse trail over looking El Alacrán's rancho. Maybe he'd even take a few pictures for Joe. Joe had to get over his bad habit of playing fair with the Watchers. The unreasonable expectation they would play fair in return was going to get him killed.

*****  
Joe surveyed the giant truck with disdain. It was flashy, but top-heavy and probably cornered like an oil tanker. He spurned the offer of assistance from the expressionless escort and grabbed the overhead handle, pulling himself a full three feet straight up into the cab, and arranged himself with icy dignity. "On, James," he murmured, as he oversaw the safe storage of his guitar.

The truck might be a bitch to get into, but it had clearance. It needed clearance. The road to El Alacrán's estancia crossed flash-flood racked ravines and bounced over boulders and broken rock for miles in the lightless desert. They were crossing the old Yaqui reserve to the ranch inholding, by Joe's reckoning. They were long beyond the playa developments, and far into a part of Mexico that hadn't changed much since Aztecs ruled.

It would be a long walk back, Joe mused.

He glanced back into the bed of the truck, and stiffened. There was his travel duffel, where he had tucked the older Methos journal he was reading, and his laptop carrier. All his gear, and Methos', too. Including the bag containing Adam's latest journal.

So much for the one night stand.

The estancia was lit by old fashioned hanging lamps, well-dimmed to prevent backlighting the sentrys manning the extensive walled compound. The truck drove through the magnificent wrought-iron gates, which clanged shut behind them with firm authority. As the dust settled, Joe smoothly lowered himself to the sandy ground, brushing his jacket into place as he settled into his sockets.

A whipcord-thin figure stood in the light spilling from the hacienda entry. Joe stepped forward, shoulders straight. "Señor Montoya, I presume?" he inquired with just a tinge of irony.

"Señor Dawson." His host sketched the smallest of bows. "Welcome. I believe I have already had a brief acquaintance of your brother-in-law. James Horton killed my son."

*****  
After a comfortable length of silence had been shared between the walking men, Methos asked, "This man that Joe went to – do you know him? Is he a good man?"

Cornelio's enigmatic smile was accented by the moonlit shadows. "He loves the blues."

They fell back into the quiet of the late night, which was interrupted sporadically by quarreling voices or a coyote in the distance, but was still peaceful in its normalness. Methos mused that it could be the night sounds of any of his thousands of years.

When they reached El Motel Creston, Cornelio spoke to the young man at the desk about the musician Joe Dawson who played at his cantina and introduced his stranded friend Adam Pierson, explaining the circumstances.

The desk clerk said, "Lo siento, los hombres del Señor Montoya se llevaron el equipaje del Señor Dawson."

"My bag too? – Mi bolso también?"

"Sí. Se llevaron todo."

Methos swore in the original language. He hated it when his journals (even just his most recent one) fell into the hands of a strange Immortal. His heartbeat spiked. It wasn't just his recent journal, but the old journal of his that Joe was reading. And Joe's campaign notes ‒ everything he'd prepped and shared with Methos about El Alacrán on the long, lined yellow notepad. Everything, except the one impossible, crazy, foolish, brilliant plan of Joe's to just ride in like a tourist and take pictures.

"Cornelio? One last thing. Just where would I go to see a blonde about a horse?"

 


	2. On the Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where the cavalry comes over the hill. Twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  
> 
>  All characters are fictional. Well, maybe not the big brown horse, but he's under alias.

  


Joe sighed, and ground his cane into the earth, steadying himself. He met Montoya's eyes squarely, and said with perfect honesty, "I am very sorry to hear that James...killed your son." Joe paused, hunting for words. Now was not the time to point out Immortals didn't have offspring. Family was family. "James became the very abomination that he feared. I admit he committed many crimes, against mortals and Immortals alike. But I did not know he brought his insanity here."

"Someone knew. Someone who sends spy after spy, all with the trefoil tattoo. Just like yours. And each one I catch tells me a little bit more. Like the names of James Horton's relatives and colleagues in the International Asset Corporation." Taut and erect, El Alacrán kept his anger tightly controlled. His chin rose in challenge, and the lanterns backlit his profile. His hooked, aristocratic nose rivaled Methos' in bony length and artistic hauteur. "Your name, for instance."

"Yes. Someone knew," Joe agreed, dismayed but not surprised. Someone did know ‒ someone who had sent him deliberately into the Scorpion's den. He met his gaze. "Is that why you sent the rider on the beach? To run me down and make it look like an accident?"

"Hah! Amateur. The smallest niño on the rancho, who has only five years, could outride that incompetent. I saw the embarrassment by camera phone. No. When I decide to kill you, there will be no innocent witnesses, and no inconvenient body on my own doorstep."

Joe believed him. "When you decide to kill me, I will try to remember to thank you for keeping it neat."

"I am a reasonable man. Perhaps you will convince me such incivility is unnecessary," Montoya shrugged. "Now, come. Food and music first, business later. My private stage has hosted musicians and masters from a hundred countries. Tonight, it will be your turn. I trust you will play as if your life depended upon it?" Montoya flashed a blinding smile.

"How can I refuse such a generous invitation from the Lion of Sonora?" Joe answered with a fierce grin of his own.

Montoya's smile flickered out. "The lion is dead. Only El Alacrán remains."

There was a thump behind Joe, and he turned to see his bag settled on the dusty cobblestone. He was more perturbed to see Methos' bag appear next to it. "Careful with my guitar," he reminded sternly, as he slipped his hand into his pocket and opened his cell phone, keying by feel the combination that would erase all the contact numbers in the memory chip. Methos. MacLeod. His niece and his daughter. A quick-witted guard heard the subtle chime as he deactivated the phone, and grabbed his arm.

"What, don't I get one phone call?" he asked mildly, offering up the phone to his host. He endured a hasty search patiently, and soon his wallet, passport and Swiss army knife joined the bags and computer.

"Who would you call, Señor Dawson?" Montoya asked curiously. "Your young friend who so bravely defended you from a charging horse? Or your company, to ask for more helicopters and automatic weapons?"

Joe shook his head. Horton and his helicopters. James never got past the tactics he used in Cambodia. "This is a private matter. If you figure I inherit Horton's sins, well, that's a matter of honor between the two of us. Leave my friend out of it."

"I will not tolerate spies. Your friend must leave himself out of it, as you say." Montoya reached down into a bag and pulled out a battered journal. Methos' journal. He paged through it curiously.

"He's an archivist," Joe said quickly. "A jumped-up librarian. We both collect books."

"I have quite a fine library. Perhaps, in time, I will convince him to share his knowledge."

"Adam has nothing to do with Horton," Joe insisted. "And Horton's dead. He's been dead for years."

"Yet the spies keep coming," Montoya stopped at a page, his eyes narrowing. Waving his hand imperiously, his full attention now on the book, he ordered the guards to move the baggage to the library. "Put the musician on the stage."

Joe was firmly escorted into the hacienda with a bit more care than the baggage, and placed on the center of a stage in a small, but acoustically superb auditorium. A short, fussy functionary asked him politely how he would like to be lit.

"Paris, by way of Chicago," Joe answered cryptically, but the man seemed pleased with the answer and happily experimented with some smoky blue filters and warm amber spots. Joe forgot the guards in the wings, and ignored the lights, and tuned his guitar carefully. He didn't ask anyone what kind of music El Alacrán preferred. If this was going to be his last concert, Joe was going to play whatever the hell he damn pleased.

*****  
Montoya picked through the remains of Joe Dawson's belongings, and toyed with the pictures of three women he found in a secret compartment of his wallet, which now lay shredded and empty on the library reading table. One was Horton's daughter, of course, and one was surmised to be Dawson's dead lover. The third was not mentioned in the extensive file that his private investigators had compiled. He wondered if she were even alive‒his very private investigator's reports also mentioned that people died with distressing frequency around the blues musician.

Yet, Dawson had entered his home unarmed without making a single protest or threat. He had silently accepted the accusations laid against Horton without defending his own honor. Indeed, he put more effort into defending his mysterious young friend. Perhaps they were lovers as well? Montoya dismissed the possibility as dissonant with his own assessment of the man. Moreover, his investigator's files also included pictures of the handsome young Mr. Pierson taking leave of Duncan MacLeod on his barge, and there had been no mistaking the Highlander's possessive expression.

The Highlander presented a serious problem. Though they had parted company as friends, Montoya had heard through Grace Chantal that both MacLeod's student Richard and his teacher Connor had died at his hands. That was reprehensible. And inexplicable. The Highlander he knew would have taken his own head before committing such sins against his Immortal family. It was just as well the remaining Highlander was reported to be half a world away. But his associates were here. And he had long worried MacLeod had fallen in with bad company. Bad company, indeed, to twist the Highlander to such evil.

Montoya pushed Dawson's small pile of possessions away, and leafed through the leatherbound book. A phrase, a scene, caught his eye. Quickening. Lightning ripping a black hole in a clear blue sky. "What have you here, Señor Dawson? A memoir? Just what kind of archivists collect tales of the Immortals? A librarian and a musician? Or a spy and an assassin?"

*****  
Joe stretched his sore thighs, hungry and thirsty and somewhat annoyed at being kept waiting under the lights. Finally, a candle flared in the center of a single table in the dark before the stage. His audience of one had arrived. Joe spoke no words of introduction. He just stroked his guitar with one of the first riffs he learned on the streets of Chicago as a footloose and fatherless teen. He built on the melody, flowing into the classic blues songs he learned in his undisciplined youth, infusing them with the optimistic innocence of his college years. Reworking some Hendrix rhythms, he slid into the dark undercurrent of the Vietnam War, building to a painful crescendo, and a longer, more painful, silence.

Then the riff from his youth began again, no longer innocent, no longer optimistic, but leaner and stronger. It grew more complex, the darker chords always brooding beneath the bright melodies of his post-war years as a journeyman. Joe did not spare his audience his failures, and he did not dwell on his triumphs. They were transitory, and he was mortal, and that was the way of life, to move on, searching for the next song.

Joe paused to wipe down and retune the guitar, and automatically reached for a bottle of beer that wasn't there. There was a soft request in the darkened gallery, and a sound of protest, then the thump of a chair. His host wasn't alone, then. Footsteps echoed on the cooling tiles, and out of the darkness materialized the woman he had last seen in the bar.

Wordlessly, she pushed a bucket of ice containing bottles of both mineral water and Coronitas. It would get him through. "Gracias, Señora," he said softly, with the hint of a question. Her eyes were still hard, and hot, and unforgiving. She melted back into the darkness before he could find the words to ask her why.

"Forgive my manners, Señor. My daughter-in-law, Mary," his host intoned softly. "Doctora María Calle Álvarez de Montoya. Married to my adopted son and first student, Timoteo. Your people were responsible for her husband's death. My son was shot down from a helicopter while riding fence on the far side of rancho. He was beheaded before help could arrive." Montoya's voice was gentle. But his eyes were not.

"I am sorry, Doctora. Señor. I did not know." There were no words to offer, no excuses. He found a song. And another. And another. So many questions, so many angry misunderstandings, since his destiny crossed with Immortals. The strings of his guitar jangled with the regrets of the past. They yearned for a sense of peace just beyond his reach.

Only once again did he stop to address his invisible audience. "This song, I wrote after I shot James Horton."

There was the hiss of an indrawn breath. "You killed him?" Montoya asked sharply.

Joe shook his head. "I shot him. MacLeod finished the job," he confessed, closing his eyes. No one else had ever heard this particular song. Joe hoped no one else ever would. Not all confessions were healing.

Joe played until beyond sunrise, at the peak of his craft, and the end of his story. Then he put down his guitar, and waited for judgement.

*****  
The sun was rising as MacLeod pulled into the bus station in Guaymas (despite Methos' absurd order that he stay in Paris.) He had taken the overnight Ejecutivo bus from Phoenix to San Carlos, because waiting for the daily small plane would have wasted 12 hours. As he stretched in the early dawn light, he had to admit the big, roomy Tufesa buses were far more comfortable than the tiny Dash 8 prop jet would have been. Air travel had gone downhill since the days of the Flying Clippers.

The twin peaks of Tetakawi still towered over the town. Resort developments had grown like mold on the boat harbors, but there were still long stretches of uninhabited beach scoured clean by hurricanes and uninhabitable mountains with no water and fewer roads surrounding the town. It was almost unchanged since the time MacLeod had roamed revolution-wracked Mexico, side-stepping both the Mexican army and Pancho Villa's vaqueros, trying to right wrongs with the new Lion of Sonora.

MacLeod stretched again, his face to the warm Sonoran sun, and suddenly grinned. "Viva Zapata!" It was good to be back.

MacLeod didn't linger in the memories ‒ he felt an urgency to find Joe and Methos without delay. Separately, the two men managed to keep low profiles, quietly going about their businesses. Both, for very different reasons, tended to watch life from the sidelines, recording their observations for posterity. But together! Together they not only attracted trouble, but a surprising amount of mayhem followed their passage.

*****  
The bay gelding was an impressive seventeen hands tall, giving his rider a clear view of the hillside, even while they were funneled up the high chaparral lined path. Methos and the rent-a-horse had bonded quickly over the issue of fools. Big Brown did not suffer fools. And Methos not only was nobody's fool, but would undoubtably eat a foolish horse. Big Brown agreed to a distant second in command of this adventure, unlike his usual arrangement with tourist riders. This one certainly was guiding them outside the safety zone since starting their journey shortly before dawn.

Methos' backside was an hour nicely broken-in when his cell phone began to clang. The clashing swords ring tone had been programmed into the phone by MacLeod as a joke, which proved entertaining enough to leave put.

"Pierson."

"I'm here." Speak of the devil. "Where are you?"

"Mac! You're supposed to be in Paris waiting for the auction."

"There are other old books in the world. But only one of you – thank goodness. Where are you?"

Methos sighed. It certainly wasn't like the old days when you could get on your horse and ride away from your problems.

"I'm taking up the old ways, Highlander."

"Adam!"

Methos sighed again and added a few Latin curses. "I'm riding to a location where I can over look Manolito Montoya's hacienda to take pictures, and worry about Joe. Which would possibly be a better plan if I had the map. Though the path I'm on seems like a nice path – especially for the middle of nowhere. Still..."

"You're lost."

Methos remained silent, not about to debate the matter. He certainly wasn't going to ask for directions.

Apparently not feeling compelled to offer any, MacLeod continued, "Manolito Montoya? Many years ago I rode with an Immortal in these parts that went by that name, though some of the locals called him the Lion of Sonora."

"They call him El Alacrán now-a-days. The Scorpion. And Watchers and Immortals disappear when they get too close."

"Well then, I guess it's a good thing you're lost."

"I travelled to Chin by camel navigating only by the stars, MacLeod."

"Too bad it's ten hours 'til sundown. Come back and meet me. I've rented a Jeep. We'll drive in the front way. Haven't had a chance to talk with Mano for nearly a century. It will be nice to catch up."

"Nice! MacLeod! Rumor has it that people are never seen again after entering Montoya's domain."

"Mano always liked his privacy. And you know a good rumor is better than a good fence. Of course, the last time I saw him he was running tequila to Tucson during Prohibition. Good Bacanora, too, I'll have to ask if he's still making it."

"So you think just driving in uninvited and cadging a drink is a good plan? Mac, how have you managed..."

"I studied under the master. You."

As he argued with MacLeod on his cell phone Methos continued riding up the arid hillside. Finally, he and Big Brown reached the crest of the hill. "Whoa, Boy." There below was the ranch, a well-watered compound with many outbuildings and strong walls and fencing. Contented horses grazed in a paddock. Big Brown nickered quietly, and pricked up his ears. "Well I guess I'm not lost after all. El Rancho de Montoya."

"If you're playing at Watcher, and Mano is down there innocently being Watched, where did you stash Joe? Why are you worried about him? I can't believe you talked him into staying behind."

"Because that worked so well for us both in the past?" Methos returned tartly. "Joe's not behind. He's way, way ahead of me. Somehow he finessed an invitation into El Alacrán's lair to play a private concert without ever speaking to the man, or leaving my side. Sight. Well, okay, I blinked."

"Joe's a musician. He does concerts. You've never followed him halfway across the world to eavesdrop on his assignments before. Even if it involved an Immortal. Especially if it involved an Immortal. Joe's cover is sound, so what's the real problem?" MacLeod asked, in an unreasonably reasonable tone.

Methos patted Brown's shoulder as he dismounted and loosened the cinch, tucking the cell phone into the crook of his neck. "The problem is, when they took Joe, they took his gear. And mine, too. With two of my journals. An old one, that only Joe can really appreciate in all it's splendor. That one we can fob off as science fiction. But there's also the current one, with many lively accounts of our wacky escapades together. Me. You. And Joe."

"If they read it, his cover is blown."

"His cover is blown so sky high, the Martian Rover can't find it. If they read it. But so far, we don't know that Montoya has any other interests than music on his mind."

"Don't go in there by yourself. Wait for me."

"Never fear, MacLeod. It's more likely I'll sprout wings and fly. I'm just going to sit here with my camera phone and wait for the Scorpion to pose. Hopefully, Joe is comfortably dazzling your friend with his blues. Or his sunny disposition. My bet is on the guitar."

*****  
MacLeod did not take the time to check into the hotel, notice the beautiful beach, or even grab a bite to eat. Instead he headed his Jeep toward his old friend's fortress. Montoya was loyal to his friends, but wary of strangers and could be unmerciful to his enemies. Which camp did Mano think Joe slept in? He worried as he headed north and then east at highest possible speed. As luck and local roadbuilders would have it, the trail might have meandered around a few new cacti and arroyos since the days of the revolution, but Tetakawi still made an infallible landmark.

Torn between relief and anxiety that Montoya was the Immortal Joe had successfully stalked, MacLeod kept the accelerator punched and the gears shifting, touching the tires to the ground only as often as physics required as he sped up the dirt road.

*****

Pouring the last of the water from his canteen into his new Stetson, Methos offered it to Big Brown. Nobodies fool, the horse drank all on offer, licking up every ounce from the crown. "So much for that 'new hat' smell," Methos laughed, perching it on the saddle horn to let the horse spit dry.

Leaving the bay secured to the chaparral, Methos crept back to the overlook and sat cross-legged, watching the ranch through binoculars. He reset the phone, cradled in his lap, ready for photo action, just like a Real Live Watcher. Joe would have laughed his arse off if he could see him now.

Time passed slowly when on Watch, Methos rediscovered.

*****  
Joe blinked at the sunlight as a table was set for two on the patio. Running his fingers along his guitar case before putting it down at his feet and easing into the chair, Joe admitted to himself that the audition seemed to have gone well. El Alacrán, the last of the Montoyas, had risen to his feet to give a solitary, but heartfelt, standing ovation. Joe felt an unrealistic regret and slight stab to his vanity that Mary had not joined him. Still, he did not expect Montoya's honestly warm words. "You have the blood of Bards in your veins," he said in grave compliment. "It would be a crime to bring an end to such talent."

Drained and too tired to muster a more polite response, Joe just shook his head. "Just another guitar player," he protested automatically, his voice roughened by lack of sleep and heavy use.

"I have been remiss in my duties as host. Please, drink. Food will arrive soon." Montoya himself poured two shots of a very fine bottle of blue añejo, which Joe shared after making careful eye contact with his host. But before they could safely break bread and put the ancient diplomacies behind them, one of the guards interrupted. Joe had picked up enough Spanish to figure out that surveillance cameras had caught a trespasser. A familiar trespasser. Montoya's smile grew sharper, more feral. "Shall we invite your friend to join us?"

*****  
When finally his first photo opportunity materialized from the adobe ranch house, Methos clicked off a few pictures in rapid succession, but was soon disturbed to see Joe and Montoya rise from a peaceful repast and walk to the front gate to face his direction on the hillside. He knew he was far from sensing range of another Immortal, and couldn't believe he could be seen by the unaided eye. But Montoya was pointing directly at him.

Then in a decidedly worrisome move, Montoya made a beckoning motion to Methos while patting Joe on the shoulder. Montoya wasn't visibly armed, but his well-tailored jacket had the potential to hide a wide variety of sharp objects. Moreover, two guards posted on the walls converged on the open gate behind Joe and Montoya, and their firepower bespoke Montoya's intentions far more clearly than his gleaming smile. Even as he watched, they were joined by a woman carrying a lever action Remington with a scope. Sun glinted off the lens as she raised it and aimed at his position.

Methos suddenly felt very cold, and his head started to hurt again. He ducked behind a rock and hit the first number on his speed dial. "Hello, Mac? You know what I said before, well I'm about to do something incredibly stupid."

"Let me remind you, you _promised_ you'd stay put, and that it was more likely you'd learn to fly than go down there. Don't tell me you've sprouted wings."

" 'Fraid not. Just me and Big Brown riding down the hill."

"Methos! Give me fifteen minutes!"

"Sorry Mac, it will take me five, at the most, to get down there." Methos disconnected MacLeod and punched in Amy's number and downloaded the last pictures of Joe to her email, then he deleted the pictures and his cell phone's contact list.

He stood up and waved boldly to the figures below. Fetching the bay, he did his best not to transmit his nervousness to the horse. He stuffed the binoculars into the saddlebag and slid his cell phone back into his pocket. He contemplated leaving his sword tied to his saddle, but found that that was beyond his ability, and took the time to loop his belt through the scabbard. No point in pretending he was just a Watcher. As he rode slowly down into the canyon, he went over in his mind all that was written in the journals Montoya had taken.

On the plus side there was a mountain of information indicating he was friend to MacLeod. Stories Mac had told him. Stories from Mac's past and testimony to the pain of his last decade. Hell, one would think that the newer journal was Duncan MacLeod's journal instead of his own. Where was he in that 'diary'? Just a guy in the background. A really stupid guy. But the other journal, the older one he'd lent to Joe. Now that was Methos.

Standing behind the gate, the woman with the rifle followed his slow progress all the way down with her scope, until he was masked by some thorn bushes. He could bolt from here around the shoulder of the hill, meet up with MacLeod. Keep him from walking into the trap. Start a new plan. Through the screen of vegetation, he watched as she lost her target, and lowered her rifle.

To point it right at Joe.

*****  
MacLeod slammed on the brakes, draping his car with a cloud of dust, barely missing the closed heavy metal gate across the road. An electronic keypad blinked at him balefully, completely out of place attached to a barbed wire fence. MacLeod remembered this country better by horseback ‒ roads were easier to block than stock trails. Just beyond the fence the terrain would rise up and then drop into a natural bowl, where the ranch was sheltered from the wind and the well-water was sweet.

He got out of the Jeep, fastened his sword to his back, and vaulted the fence. Methos would be descending from the western notch above the ranch. Joe...MacLeod gritted his teeth. Joe had a hell of a lot of explaining to do about how he got himself and Methos in this mess in the first place.

*****  
"He won't come down. He can't come down." Joe swore to himself as he watched Methos let his horse pick his way down the steep slope. Just what the hell was he thinking? Where was the master strategist? The brilliant tactician? Apparently he'd been replaced by a sunstruck drugstore cowboy in a Walmarto Stetson. Two guards still lined the outer wall, and more now mounted all terrain vehicles behind the stable. Even Montoya's daughter in law, Mary, carried a Remington, with every indication that she knew very well how to use it. As soon as Methos came down off the escarpment, he'd be flanked and surrounded.

"If he were an honorable friend, he must come down and join us, no?" Montoya laughed. Then his whole body tensed, and Montoya balanced on his toes, his hand instinctively reaching inside his formal coat. His eyes blazed, lit with the prospect of combat.

Joe had seen the same light in MacLeod's eye. He'd seen it too many times. "It's not what you think!"

"You did not mention that you traveled with an Immortal. Did it slip your mind?"

"I try not to notice," Joe admitted. "It's not like he acts his age," he added in his own defense.

Again, Montoya patted his arm in a too-familiar manner, and waved at the approaching rider. "He is a horseman?"

"You have no idea," Joe muttered. This was it. He wasn't going to hang here in the gate like bait, while yet another friend walked into danger. Not again. Never again. "Sorry about this," he warned, with genuine feeling. "Really. I am. But this has gone on long enough." Then, gripping his cane below the handle, he swung the solid metal head around in a short arc, connecting with the side of Montoya's head. The stunned Immortal fell like a sack of oats.

Joe's one slim advantage of surprise gave him a few steps on the gate guards. They had placed all their concentration on the approaching visitor, and nearly all the observers from the rancho missed the blow.

One hadn't. "Papá!" Joe heard as he stumped through the opened gate and across the road into cover in a gap in the thorn bushes and organ barrels. Feeling like a heel, Joe nearly stopped and turned, until a rifle shot burned the breeze over his head. He ducked sideways and bounced off a mesquite before hauling himself toward the oncoming sound of hooves.

"Adam, you idiot!" he thundered, as he heard a confused exchange of orders and counter-orders in Spanish, and the ATVs roar into life behind him. "Get the hell out of here!"

"Joe!" He heard Methos shout, as he gathered the big bay for a sprint. "Oh, good goddess and her handmaiden, what the fuck, Joe!"

Then the arm of a cactus exploded next to Joe's head, and pelted him with pulp. He heard bullets ricochet off the rocks near Methos. He could freeze, and watch, still hostage, or continue forward, and draw fire away from the approaching Immortal.

"We're both too old for this shit," Joe muttered. If he couldn't keep Methos away, he'd better join him. At least that way, if they were both toasted, neither of them would have to explain it to MacLeod. He shifted his concentration to gauging the distance and speed of the approaching disaster.

Methos leaned over the horse's neck and nudged the bay into a gallop as he hit the flats, aiming straight toward him, again shouting "Joe! Get out of the open!"

Giving into Methos' madness, Joe held out his right arm, extending his thumb, and shouted back, "Give a guy a lift?"

Methos pointed. "Edge of the bank!" he ordered before ducking around an impassable patch of thorny brush.

Intent on making what speed he could, Joe nearly took a header into a sandy wash that meandered off the ridge. Feeling his shoulderblades itch in the expectation of a bullet at any time, he turned and followed the edge, trying to keep an eye on Methos as he pelted through the brush. When his friend hit the bottom of the arroyo and Joe got a clear view of the approaching avalanche of mount and rider, he muttered, "Jesus, that is one big horse. Now...how did they hitch a ride in Bonanza?"

Methos' horse locked up in a sliding stop that put ABS brakes to shame. The height of the bank raised Joe to eye-level with both Methos and his horse. Both drew breath at once while scanning each other for bulletholes.

"Idiot!" Physically, Methos had younger lungs, but Joe had better voice control, allowing the mutual insult to echo off the hill and down the arroyo in a harmonic draw.

Taking a deep breath, Joe leaned on Methos with one hand and swung his leg over the rump of the horse with the other, almost going over the other side before Methos righted them both. Methos took a couple of precious seconds to tuck Joe's dangling legs under his own, then clamped down and muttered, "Cheetchwa!"

"I take it that means 'Hang on'?" Joe asked with a certain belated caution, and then they were off.

*****  
Mary lowered her rifle momentarily and worked the lever, chambering another round. Then she felt a hand push the barrel down, gently but firmly. "I can take them both, Papá!" she protested.

"No need to be inhospitable, chica," Montoya warned with disturbing amusement. "You may put down your rifle. While I appreciate your sentiments, we Montoyas do not shoot even outlaws in the back. Besides, how far do you think our new amigos will get?"

"Far enough to make a fool of you. We should hang them both for the turkey buzzards to feast upon," Mary grumbled, but she did as he asked. "And my Yoeme ancestors were ambushing yori invaders long before the Montoyas acquired manners."

Montoya reached around and rubbed an itch behind his ribs. "I remember very well. The sad fact is, I did promise our guest that I wouldn't leave a messy body on my doorstep. It would be rude of us to break our word. We will surround them, and take them in. Quite peaceably."

*****  
Joe and Methos both nearly went off the back of the the big horse as he put on the afterburners. Joe bared his teeth in a fierce grin as they balanced and he caught the rhythm of the hoofbeats. They both leaned into the slope as they started climbing. The hill was too steep for the ATVs, and the boulders were big enough to highcenter even the monster truck. His deathgrip on Methos probably only cracked a couple of ribs before they slowed, cresting the hill out of gunshot range, and began descending the other side with only a little more caution.

"Still have all your parts and pieces, including the dangly bits, Joe?" Methos inquired brightly, without the tiniest hint of annoyance.

"Apparently," Joe admitted, surreptiously checking said bits, not fooled by the tone but too exhilarated to care. Horses weren't Harleys, and they lacked some of the padding in key areas. "Nice legs. The horse, I mean," he complimented. He felt absurdly pleased with himself for not falling off. Yet.

"Big Brown has a lot of heart for a cynical tourist horse," Methos allowed as they scrambled down the hill, shifting his weight in the saddle. "Most wouldn't make that climb with the weight of two men." By the time they had descended the south side of the ridge top, Methos disentangled himself from Joe's clutches and dismounted to check the cinch and walk the bay. "You're lucky you didn't land on your arse on a cholla. Or get yourself shot to pieces. Again. And where are my journals?" he grumbled loudly.

Grinning, Joe transferred his deathgrip to the saddle cantle and the reins when Methos dismounted, rebalancing on the vastly more comfortable worn leather saddle. "That was better than a Harley, man. And don't worry about the journals, okay? I had things under control. Once we get you to a safe spot, I'll head back. I have to get my guitar anyway."

Methos fussed with a flapping leg, trying to secure it to a stirrup. He spared Joe a single, swift murderous look, then grabbed the reins and started walking southwest. "Not on my Watch, you don't," he said with careful clarity.

Joe grabbed the saddle horn to steady himself. Maybe they'd have that conversation about Boy Scout Cavalry charges a little bit later. Methos seemed a bit tetchy.

"That oasis down there will give us good cover. We can follow the streambed to the sea." Methos led them into the high chaparral, keeping them hidden, as they made their way toward the plain. A third of the way down Methos stopped short, and drew his sword.

Joe was only starting to get the hang of the big bay's sloping walk when Methos froze, and he scrabbled for a handhold again, annoyed, until he heard Methos say "MacLeod?" in an oddly winsome voice.

Joe scanned the hill, perplexed. "MacLeod?" Then he pointed. "Montoya. There. Damn. He's good." Montoya crested the hill just a few dozen yards behind them, bareback on a grey roan mare that nickered and danced. Joe made out the glint of Toledo steel lashed to his back. "So that's what he had under his coat. Better get back on the horse, Adam." When his friend didn't appear to hear him, he added quietly, "Methos. Time to go."

Methos just looked up at Joe, 2000 years of civilization evaporating from his eyes. "No, Brother, this one is mine." He pointed the bay back toward the sea, and whispered the language of corn and carrot and good green hay. "Give him his head, Joe, and you'll be back at the corrals before noon. I'll buy you a beer at the beach." Then he slapped the bay's rump, and sent the horse flying.

*****  
El Alacrán shook his head in disappointment, and delicately guided his lightfooted mare down to Methos. He shook out his blade, and landed softly next to his horse. "My name is Manolito Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

" 'Prepare to die'? " Methos repeated in disbelief. "I've never even met your father!" He altered his stance, and twirled his own blade up in a deceptively loose grip. "Besides, only five fingers, here. And no six-fingered blade," he waggled his off hand in proof, gauging the focus of his opponent.

"I've always wanted to use that line," Montoya grinned. He whipped his blade into the en garde. "It is true, you didn't kill my father. But it made him very, very sad when you and Butch Cassidy stole his gold shipment in Empalme. That was impolite."

That gave Methos pause. Was he ever in Empalme? Maybe. Probably. But it didn't matter. This was supposed to be a challenge. "Well, you absconded with my friend, and that makes me very, very angry."

He gripped his sword and attacked, driving Montoya back with momentum and ferocity. The rough ground was no place to pretend you were anything other than an efficient killer. His broadsword slammed against Montoya's lighter rapier. The small part of him that was still Adam had seen Montoya's grin and heard the humor offered – along with his blade – but Methos' feral soul had custody at the moment and refused Adam's counsel. A flurry of slaps and parries followed as they danced amongst the cacti and chaparral.

The swords were matched in length, but not in weight. Methos had the advantage in a longer arm reach and heavier blade, not to mention an uncivilized attitude and thousands of years more experience. But the swing weight of the blade would work against him in an extended skirmish. He backed off when he decided Montoya was retreating too easily, trying to draw him into over-extending his reach.

"Why do you work for this man...this...'Watcher'?" Montoya asked.

So much for hoping the journals had remained unread. A fragment of Adam the once-and-future Watcher laughed and gained mind space. "I suppose that's meant to be a taunt." He resumed attacking, pushing the much younger man away from his horse this time.

"Or maybe it is he that works for you?" Counter attack.

Parry. Montoya's quick slash slid off his guard. "No and no. He's just a friend. Who harbors a dangerous sense of duty. In a way, he was working for you." Attack. Beat the lighter blade aside, keep him on his heels.

Parry. Montoya used the terrain well. "Me? An honorable man does not spy on people." Montoya insisted. Counter attack. Methos felt a cholla spine stab his calf. He ripped free.

Parry. "It depends on your notion of honor. His kind have kept our secret for thousands of years."

And thrust! Montoya's sword arm was pierced through, nerve and sinew. The rapier fell from numb fingers to the ground.

Methos shoved Montoya off his feet and snatched up the young Immortal's sword, crossing the blades at his throat. Montoya held himself proudly, waiting for Methos to strike. _'This is MacLeod's friend.'_ Methos backed off.

"I didn't come for your head. I came for Joe."

"Mr. Dawson and I had not yet concluded our business. In fact, you interrupted our breakfast."

"You should be sure your opponent has a sense of humor before you offer him cheek from the losing side of a challenge," Methos twitched Montoya's own swordpoint to his sideburn and away so quickly the blade blurred.

"Perhaps I've watched too many movies," Montoya acknowledged ruefully, carefully feeling his cheekbone. There was no blood, just the featherlight touch. "However, I must point out that it was you who invaded my property, and incited my guest."

"Joe can be abrupt, but his table manners don't usually include sucker punching his host."

"I am relieved to hear it."

"I admit to being somewhat concussed yesterday, so maybe my judgment is off regarding your intention. Still, he is mortal. A good man. And if you had harmed him, MacLeod would have kicked my backside back to Europe, right after he took your head. Friend or no friend."

"MacLeod?"

Methos' grin was a fearful thing. "Don't be coy, I'm sure you've been enjoying my journal. MacLeod heard you were having a party without him. 'Fraid I let it slip, accidentally."

*****  
MacLeod made good time up a long, low ridge, dodging cacti and holes in the steep terrain. He heard the clash of swords long before he felt the buzz of Immortals. He swore vehemently in Gaelic, and picked up his speed. Suddenly a movement in the arroyo leading away to his right caught his eye, and he slowed – of all the things he didn't expect to see – Joe on horseback! And apparently in loud debate with a tall bay.

MacLeod paused, torn between the sounds of combat and the sight of Joe tilting precariously as his willful horse wound through the thorn bushes with a sprightly homeward-bound step. MacLeod realized the reins were dragging well beyond his reach ‒ Joe's only control over the horse lay in his threatening invective ‒ and MacLeod would wager the horse didn't speak Marine.

Go after Joe, or find Methos?

*****

The big bay slowed, ears flicked forward, and he arched his neck, peering from side to side in the thick gloom under a grove of palms. Buzzards and crows lined the upper fronds of the tall trees, eyeing them with detached interest and eery silence.

Joe peered from side to side, too, seeing only another barbed wire fence and scattered vegetation. "What, you lost?" Joe hitched forward, trying yet again to reach the dangling reins. As he ducked, a gunshot wrecked the quiet, and a rifle round cut through the air over his head. Buzzards and ravens burst into the air like black fireworks, wheeling and cawing.

The big bay shied away from the noise, levitating four feet sideways and well out from under his unsecured rider, sides heaving and eyes rolling. Joe hung in the air for a long second, contemplating his sins, before he plummeted straight down into a pile of sand, dried palm fronds and rusty fence wire. Hoof beats! Big Brown exiting while another approached.

Joe's first instinct was to find a foxhole, but the barbed wire was tangling up his right arm. His next impulse was to find a weapon, but the only objects within reach were stiff brown fronds and a few pebbles in the sand. He broke off a frond and used it to cover three or four of the largest rocks. A tall man dismounted a familiar white horse and walked toward where Joe was trapped.

"Give it up, Dawson. It's past time, old man," said his ambusher, as he kicked the pebbles away. The white horse's rider had appeared nondescript at a distance on the beach the day before, average in many respects; now close-up, Joe could see fine scars lining one side of his face and cold blue eyes, devoid of mercy.

Joe gripped the frond angrily, cracking it in half in his hand. "You shoot me, they'll track you down."

"Who? The Watchers? Who do you think sent me? At least a concerned few." The hard young man with the hammerheaded white horse laughed. "Your Adam? El Alacrán will leave that upstart a head shorter. Montoya loathes spies. And your precious MacLeod? When we're done here, he'll think Montoya did it. Either way, two out of three abominations will be eliminated."

Joe yanked against the wire, succeeding only in wrapping it tighter, exposing his wrist, raked with thin lines of blood. "MacLeod isn't a fool."

"Fool enough to protect you for years. But that protection is gone now, isn't it?" The rider taunted as he pulled out an odd-looking pistol from his saddlebag. "This is a tranquilizer gun. Except I've replaced the tranquilizer with something else. Care to guess?"

And with a certain professional satisfaction, the rider aimed and fired. A dart sunk almost dead center into the Watcher tattoo on Joe's right wrist. "Concentrated scorpion venom. Jugo de El Alacrán."

Swearing, Joe reached for the dart and pulled it free. "Are you crazy?" he hissed.

"No. But my clients were insistent that you not die quickly. I'm afraid they are quite unstable absinthe sippers. But they pay well. And I'm afraid there are others bearing grudges against you. Hard to believe, what they'll pay to take out one weak old man."

Joe slowly stopped fighting the wire, and bit by bit folded in on himself. The flechette rolled free from his left hand and dropped in the dirt. His arm flopped bonelessly on the pile of fronds.

"I'll need the evidence, I'm afraid," the rider bent down to pick up the dart.

He staggered back, eyes wide in mortal surprise, the broken edges of a palm frond sticking out of his throat.

 

"Ah, you do talk a great deal about Duncan MacLeod in your journal. Many interesting things." Montoya leaned his back against a rock, catching his breath while his wound healed.

"Yes." Methos sat on the ground too, a safe distance away, watching the younger Immortal closely. He retained both their swords. "A bad habit of mine."

Montoya waited politely for Methos to say more. Finally, he said, "Joseph called you an archivist."

"Not a jumped up librarian? I've come up in the world."

"What are you waiting for, mi amigo?"

"For whatever the fates – " A gun shot to the southwest startled both men. "– shit. Get up!"

Montoya stood, silenced by the hard visage now before him.

"Toward the gunfire – mi amigo." Methos motioned with his sword downhill.

He followed Montoya down the backside of the hill toward the border gate. He carried both swords, his captive's resting on his left shoulder and his own broadsword pointed at Montoya's back.

"That was not my men firing," Montoya pointed out reasonably. "I heard a hunting rifle. My men have automatic weapons. If there are more of you, why charge my hacienda alone?"

Methos flicked the tip of his sword toward where the sound of gunfire had come from. "Move faster. If I have to dig another bullet out of Joe I'll have to start charging him by the pound."

"You are a doctor?"

Methos did not answer.

*****  
Joe pushed himself upright, and set about unhooking himself from the barbwire tines, keeping one eye on the assassin bleeding out on the sands before him. It didn't take long. He'd hit the jugular before the frond splintered on bone. Buzzards were already circling overhead, no doubt looking for a two for one special.

Joe bestirred himself when one particularly bold raven perched on a barrel cactus and cocked his head. "Not today, brother Crow," Joe announced, scooting himself to the nearest tree to pull himself to his feet. He approached the body cautiously, balancing with difficulty, since he'd rather carelessly dropped his cane back in the ravine. The dart wound in his forearm was starting to throb, and he could feel his pulse racing. "Just adrenaline," he muttered to himself, as he tottered over to the corpse and picked up the dart gun, looking at it curiously. Still one dart in the chamber. Maybe he'd only gotten half a dose. Maybe not. Maybe that one was meant for Methos.

Joe shivered. Immortals processed drugs and poisons quickly. Quickly affected, quickly healed. But even the eldest would be briefly affected by a lethal dose. Just long enough to lose his head. Joe shivered again, goose bumps rising on his skin despite the desert heat. He shrugged it off, wincing at another stab of pain in his forearm, sharply reminding him that he didn't have time to waste. He checked the body's pockets ‒ no wallet. No pesos. No convenient International Asset paystub to trace.

A crunching sound made Joe turn and point the gun, a near disaster, as he barely avoided putting a dart in the big brown horse. Disgusted with himself, he tucked the gun under the body, out of sight, away from further evil mischief. The big brown horse nickered softly, flicking his ears forward at the scent of blood. He looked a bit ashamed of himself for mislaying his rider, but not enough to get close to the corpse. Joe had nearly sweet-talked him into reach when a large body crashing through the brush spooked him again.

"Damn, MacLeod," Joe muttered to himself. "You would show up. Just when things were going so well."

*****  
MacLeod ran as fast as he could toward Joe, not taking the care one should in a desert, accepting that he might pay later with cactus spines in his legs. As he burst through the brush into the oasis, he drew his katana, sweeping the surroundings for enemies. When he reached Joe, he was surprised to find the action over, and relieved to know Joe was the survivor. Amazed by the attacker's route of demise, he asked, "Did you learn that in the Watchers? Or the Marines?"

Joe didn't seem to hear the question. He was unsteadily edging up to the tall bay standing a dozen feet away, promising him rare treats if he'd let Joe catch him. A white horse ambled up to the corpse, nosing around, before snorting loudly and backing away.

MacLeod looked around for his cane. He'd never seen Joe without it. "You OK, Joe?"

"In comparison to him, just peachy." He pointed to the bloody remains.

"Who was he?"

"One of my fans."

"When does it end?"

"When I'm dead. Listen Mac. I need to get back down there to the rancho. Montoya has my gear and two of Methos' journals."

"Where is Methos?"

"Making like Methos of the Clan MacLeod," Joe answered, waving tiredly to the west. "You should go find him before he grows a kilt."

MacLeod frowned, having no intention of leaving Joe alone in the wilderness. "What happened to lying on the beach?"

"It was just too damned dull."

MacLeod nodded. "Idle hands," he sighed. He kept his own hand on his katana as he quartered the clearing. He decided the best approach would be to help round up the two horses, and wait for an explanation until Joe was out of shock from the brutal killing. At the moment he still looked muy verde.

 

*****  
Methos resisted prodding Montoya with his sword as they extended their stride downhill. Periodically he reminded himself that this impetuous young Immortal was MacLeod's friend and that beheading him would likely cause an argument with MacLeod, not to mention the negative reaction of Montoya's men.

Montoya asked, "I accept on the evidence you are not a head hunter, but MacLeod?"

"I thought you knew Mac."

"A century ago. The things I've heard. He took the heads of his teacher, his student. What kind of man!"

"Neither was his choice."

"So you trust him."

Methos laughed. "More than I trust myself."

"Perhaps love blinds you."

"I was born before they invented love."

"What is your name?"

"Adam Pierson, in polite society. Ah, there they are! And both on their feet. Amazing."

As they approached, Duncan MacLeod and Joe Dawson were arguing about which of the two horses Joe would be riding. The one they called "Big Brown" or the one they called "Dog Food."

Methos marched into the scene of battle with his own trophy captured at the point of his sword. His trophy, annoyingly, refused to behave like proper plunder, and strode into the clearing as if he owned the oasis. Of course, there was the pesky fact that Montoya actually did own the oasis, as the strutting grandee owned all the land in sight. Montoya squared off against MacLeod, his stance balanced, his eyes questioning, the body lying between them.

"Mano." MacLeod's smile looked painful, as if conveying without words the incredible bad luck of meeting an old Immortal friend under such circumstances. The tip of his katana pointed harmlessly away and downward.

Montoya nodded in confirmation and with an equally complex expression. "Duncan."

The sweet smell of human blood, never forgotten, lay over the sands. Methos handed Montoya's sword to MacLeod (ignoring the look of surprise), then sheathed his own broadsword through his belt. MacLeod likewise sheathed his own bloodless katana after receiving the captured rapier. Methos noted the worried look on MacLeod's face, but did not take the time to explain as he strode straight to Joe, now balancing by reaching up and maintaining a deathgrip on Big Brown's saddlehorn. "You seem to have sprung some small leaks..." he observed, reaching for the arm Joe had untangled from the barbed wire.

"Ow. Stop that. And help me climb up on this damn skyscraper. I need to get back and get my guitar."

"What, no praises sung for the conquering hero? MacLeod gets all the good press," Methos sulked.

"You get me my guitar back, I'll write you a love song, wise guy," Joe promised recklessly. "Okay, maybe a ditty. Short, but memorable."

Methos brightened. "And I'll compose a warrior's ode to your shining victory. However, Montoya's army lies between us and your bright lyre, brother," he reminded, considering the tactical difficulty. "And you've just slain one of his men."

"He's not one of Montoya's." Joe peered at Methos closely. "Are you all right, man? You've been acting nuttier than Mr. Peanut since Dog Food clocked you."

Methos shrugged, smiling a Bronze Age smile. "I feel like a man half my age," he said, cheerfully boosting Joe up and arranging his legs so they pointed the same way.

"He's not one of mine," Montoya confirmed from across the clearing, as he picked up a feathered flechette from the corpse's hand and examined it curiously, sniffing the tip with a frown before showing it to MacLeod, then tucking it safely away in his shirt pocket. "They use honest bullets."

"He's right. He's one of mine," Joe said shortly. With exaggerated care, he gripped the reins in both hands, and respectfully tapped Brown's shoulder in encouragement. "How about we start in first gear, this time?" he suggested to Big Brown in a perfectly reasonable tone.

"I'm thinking Señor Dawson has limited riding experience," Montoya observed uneasily.

"Joe, wait," MacLeod called out, as he caught up the reins of the white, and nearly got bitten for his trouble.

"Behold the power of Bonanza," Methos muttered.

Joe cut a dashing figure striding on Brown's long legs out of the oasis, until Big Brown decided to stop and look around to see what the rest of the herd was doing. Still maintaining his stately dignity, Joe gently toppled over the horse's left shoulder.

As Joe slowly disappeared from view, his resigned voice floated back over the horse's withers. "Jesus, you're a tall horse."

Big Brown shied away just a little, but held his ground as Methos dashed around him to kneel down beside Joe, who cradled his arm, stunned from more than a mere fall. Snatching up Joe's arm to examine it, Doc Adams checked in and checked out the flechette wound again, now that he knew what he was looking at. The wound was red and swelling.

A wet horse nose appeared in the way of the examination. "It's all right, Brown." He patted the nose of the curious animal out of the way. The tourist horse appeared to be more than a little contrite for losing his charge not once, but twice. "Mac, would you come and secure this helpful horse?"

MacLeod looked at his old friend and held out the reins of Dog Food. "Mano."

"Duncan." Montoya nodded politely as he accepted the braided reins, acknowledging his parole. He tightened his grip when the horse bared it's teeth at him. "Barbacoa," he whispered, baring his own teeth, and the horse stilled.

MacLeod made soothing sounds to the bay and managed to take up the dangling lead and maneuver Big Brown to the side. "Come on big fellow, they don't need your help." Big Brown gave a loud snort at that, but allowed himself to be calmed.

Methos gathered Joe into a sitting position. "Did your victim mention what was in the dart?"

Looking even more green, Joe whispered, "Scorpion."

"Shit! Did he say the specie? Joe! Stay with me." _Slap_ "What species?"

"Hey! See if I write you a song." Joe closed his eyes, fending off a wave of pain. "Not so good... I don't know from scorpions. Read the ingredients."

Methos looked at the proud Mexican Immortal and said, "Señor Montoya, I realize we haven't gotten off on the right foot, but if you happen to have a helicopter that could take a certain irritating Bluesman to hospital...I might find some way to repay, or at least stay out of your way from now on." Methos gave him his best Adam Pierson pleading smile.

_'Who are you?' _You could see the question on Montoya's face as he witnessed at least the third, maybe fourth, mask on this strange Immortal in the very short period of time he'd been near. _'This is an old one.'_

"I can do better than that. There is a reason they call me El Alacrán, you know. We must remove him to my home and administer the antivenin."

The light bulb went off in all conscious minds at once, but MacLeod voiced it, "So Joe's death would be blamed on you, Mano! Damn Hunters, I should have..." The sentence was bitten off and ended in a growl.

"Let me guess," Methos said as he climbed onto Big Brown behind the saddle and motioned the other two men to deliver Joe up in front of him, "You have a scorpion collection?"

Montoya's smile was enigmatic. "Everyone needs a hobby, ¿no?"

"Here." MacLeod turned over the rapier to Montoya. "I think this must be yours."

"¡Sí!" Montoya replied, accepting back his weapon with a wide smile tinted with a look of chagrin.

Methos tucked Joe's loose legs under his own and clicked his tongue. Big Brown was headed back toward the ranch before the other two Immortals had decided a protocol for sharing Dog Food. Finally, MacLeod took the saddle, and Montoya behind, no doubt obliging because his own splendid horse would not be far away.

As the two leaned into the horse's gait and followed the disappearing bay at a canter, Montoya slapped MacLeod on the shoulder. "Where are your manners? You never introduced me to your friend. Tell me the ancient's name?"

*****  
"How long since you were hit, Joe?" Methos asked over the clatter of Brown's hooves as he held the horse to a smooth, ground-eating pace.

Joe concentrated on Brown's ears. Methos needed him to focus. Nice, straight ears. The swaying desert was making him seasick. "Five minutes after I fell off?" he guessed, frowning. "The second-to-the-last time?"

"You're a natural. You have the dismounting part down pat," Methos agreed. "Could you tell me how much?"

"Hah. Couple-three cc's. No more than four. Not even enough to get drunk." Joe rubbed at the goosebumps that were crawling up his arm. "You should have stayed on the beach and finished the tequila, buddy. Sorry about wrecking your vacation."

"And here I thought it was our vacation." Methos slowed, as the distant whining sounds of multiple ATV's skirted the ridge to the north and south. "There should have been a gun."

"Left the dart gun under the body," Joe murmured. His tongue felt thick and uncooperative.

"I heard a rifle. Why use a real gun at all, when they could have just taken you with the dartgun?" Methos mused. They were missing something.

"Noisemaker to scare my horse, draw you in. I was just the bait. You were the Prize," Joe said through gritted teeth. "Second dart was for you. Mac was right, I'm bad juju for you."

"He didn't say that."

"He didn't need to. I did," Joe shrugged, then hissed, as his sleeve fell over the wound, sending electric shafts of pain up his arm. "Tactical situation is changing, buddy. When Montoya's men surround us, he's got the advantage. Do you trust him? More important, do you trust him with Mac?"

Methos reined in Big Brown without answering. He took Joe's arm, and carefully tore back the sleeve to the elbow.

"Unless you have an old folk remedy better than antivenin, you'd be better off leaving me with Montoya and getting yourself and Mac out of here," Joe said, watching Methos work with growing anxiety.

"Sorry, I left my nettles and garlic in my shaman outfit last...what year is it in Druid reckoning? Relax. I'm going to wrap this tight enough to slow the toxin, but still let your blood flow. Then keep your hand below your heart. Understand?"

"This is going to hurt, isn't it?"

"Life hurts, Joe. You already got that memo."

*****  
Montoya felt MacLeod tense in the saddle when he asked the ancient's name. The horse sidled beneath them, and Montoya touched MacLeod's flank for balance, leaving his palm just above his hip when the horse quieted.

"I call him Adam. But ancient? Sometimes I think he has the maturity of a well-developed nine-year-old."

"Forever young," Montoya grinned, knowingly. "He is jealous. And protective. And very canny with a blade."

MacLeod shook his head. "One out of three, maybe. Hold on!" MacLeod took the iron-mouthed stallion up a nearby knoll at a full gallop, to check their back trail, and track the progress of Montoya's men over the rough ridge. "It's been a long time since I heard from you, Mano."

Montoya shrugged. "I had my troubles. So have you, I hear." His dark eyes also scanned the oasis behind them. Birds flew up, startled. "We did not find a rifle."

"No."

"Maybe he was not alone."

"Hunters tend to run in a pack."

"Then they need to be hunted down like the dogs they are," Montoya decreed coldly. "The game trails and cow paths here mostly lead through the oasis, so it makes a logical place for an ambush. But it would take at least two to secure both sides. It covers more than an acre along the wash."

MacLeod wavered, glancing back, then forward where Joe wove unsteadily in the saddle. "We will have to scout the backtrail."

Montoya pointed ahead, placing his hand around MacLeod, and patting his chest with reassurance. "First, your friend. We must catch up to them before my men do. They will not be happy."

"And then?" MacLeod asked, unwilling to concede command.

"And then? We form a pack and go hunting ourselves," Montoya said with a wide, wolfish smile. "Now, go! ¡Rápido, amigo mío!"

*****  
Methos wished the saddle gone. It interfered with his juggling of tasks, holding Joe upright and controlling the horse. Still, Big Brown knew who was in charge as they descended the hill. Montoya's men were another matter, and the dust trails of their ATVs and SUVs were rapidly hemming them in.

"Joe, this is hard for me to say, it goes against my nature, but we're going to have to trust Montoya. Those are the cards we've drawn."

"Leave me – ahhh! Dammit."

"Shh, Joe, not happening. I want you to concentrate on your breathing, nothing else. Nothing else is important right now. Good moderating breaths. You know what that is, Joe? If your heart changes rhythm you respond with the depth of breath it needs to stay level –"

"What kind of yoga malarkey –"

"Shh, Joe listen to my voice. I'm the doctor now. Moderating breaths. Concentrate on your breathing and heart. Stay with me. Breathe. Not too fast, not too shallow. Listen to your heart beats, stay away from the pain, moderating breaths...."

Methos continued to soothe and demand attention, talking constantly as they made their way down the hill. Montoya's men were now clearly visible as far up on the hill as the ATVs would take them, waiting. Big Brown responded to the horseman with his optimal gait for the terrain.

Dog Food had gained ground on them when Methos stopped to tie the tourniquet on Joe's arm, and was now in hailing distance. Methos called over his shoulder, "Señor Montoya, Joe tells me he hid the dart gun under the Hunter's body. Do you need a larger sample of the venom to identify the type of scorpion? I recall the antivenin needs to be specific to specie."

"Indeed it must, but no need to go back. The scent on the dart was enough."

"Are you serious?" Methos turned so he could get a very clear view of Montoya's eyes.

"Quite." Montoya's gaze did not waver.

"That's impressive," MacLeod commented to the man behind him. "You have to tell me how you learned that trick. And why."

"Perhaps. When we have the leisure, MacLeod, but for now I must intervene with my men. See there, one of them holds my horse's reins. They no doubt find this situation distressing."

****  
MacLeod kept a close rein on Dog Food as they approached. More than once he backed the white away from the buzzing ATV drivers as he felt the horse gather to kick, while Montoya waved his rapier merrily from his perch behind. Once the two horses reached Montoya's men the pace had to slow as they were surrounded. Montoya shouted at his best man, "¡Date prisa! El Sr. Dawson ha sido mordido por un escorpión!"

The drivers quickly cleared a path for the horses, and Big Brown galloped on toward the ranch house. Montoya leaped down from behind MacLeod and quickly mounted his own splendid horse, bolting off after the bay. MacLeod followed on Dogfood, but the hammerheaded white was skittish and aggressive amongst the buzzing ATV's, which slowed him. He had to fight to control the dead man's mount, which had the flying gaits of an Andalusian and the temperament of a wharf rat. MacLeod conceded the race and brought up the rear for the safety of all involved, consoling his competitive urge with the greater need to check their back trail for Watchers.

Watchers. Would he never be rid of them?

*****  
Joe lived with pain. It was as familiar to him as the wood grain on his guitar, as the knobs on his knuckles, as the heft of his cane. But this pain shooting up his arm, radiating insistently through his body, this pain was alien, alive. He hadn't felt anything like it in almost forty years. It chewed his nerves to pieces. It stole his breath away.

Methos kept him breathing. Every fourth lungful, when Joe could harbor enough air, he cursed him for it, gently and fervently. Slowly, the sounds faded to a whispered benediction that harmonized with Methos' voice, and he leaned back into the solid beat of the horse's hooves, and the Immortal's undying heart.

Joe sorely missed the steady backbeat when they pulled up at the hacienda and poured him off Big Brown like a flat beer. "Nice horse. Tip him for me." An attempt to proceed under his own power was foiled by his escorts. Methos was being very disrespectful, and Joe would let him know about it. Later. Then there was a sunny room, dappled with shadows thrown by tall plants, and cool ferns. Somehow, he found himself flat on his back, on blessedly cool sheets, and breathing occupied his entire attention.

"How do you feel, Joe?" Methos asked quietly, as he sneakily tried to steal his shirt. That was okay. Joe owed him the shirt off his back a couple of times over. It was wringing wet and pretty scuzzy anyway.

"Better. Let's go riding again. Like flying. But my feet hurt like crazy," Joe grinned. Neither Methos of MacLeod smiled back. That was a bad sign. Even if it was a bad joke. Except it wasn't a joke, not really.

El Alacrán appeared at Methos' shoulder, frowning. "He's experiencing a massive charge of endorphins. The effect is temporary, I'm afraid."

"Don't be a buzzkill," Joe complained.

Methos stood suddenly and guided Montoya across the room with his fingers hooked deeply inside his inner elbow. "I strongly believe in the power of suggestion," he said in a withering whisper. "And I strongly suggest you produce a treatment for Joe, or a ride to the nearest hospital. He's already experiencing some tachycardia."

Flushing slightly, Montoya plucked Methos' hand off his arm. "Are you a Doctor?" he asked. "Your journal didn't mention it."

"Nor did I mention it now. The cure?" The tone of Methos' voice remained quite reasonable, but Montoya stepped back a pace anyway.

"Joe's cardiotoxic effects match the expected symptoms of the sting from the Centruroides, though they are happening very fast," he said, gesturing to the terraria lining the walls of the room adjacent. "Neurotoxic effects may follow. My house healer is gathering our antivenin stock now. You must understand, the treatment itself is dangerous ‒ anaphalactic shock can be produced by the cure, as easily as from the initial sting."

"I am aware of that," Methos snapped. "The symptoms are coming too rapidly. The venom concentration is too high for him to ride it out. We're going to have to take a chance on the antivenin. But which one?"

Montoya moved to a series of glass cases that lined the far wall, and opened the cover of the first case. "Had we not known the venom was introduced artificially, we would assume the culprit was the indigenous bark scorpion, or the less common Alacrán de Durango, which prefers the eastern desert. Both are very toxic in high doses, but rarely lethal, except in children or the elderly."

"Who are you calling 'elderly'," Joe snapped, still in full possession of his hearing, even if his other faculties were straying.

MacLeod moved to the bed, giving Methos and Montoya a worried glance. "You're the youngest one in the room, Joe," he objected with a calculated smile, screening the conversation behind him.

Montoya dropped his voice. "But the scent and taste is wrong." He moved to a second case. "Centruroides Noxius. Found much further south, common in Nayarit. Slightly larger, with a black stripe."

"What the hell do you mean, the scent is wrong?"

"Here, smell." Montoya took the cracked flechette from his pocket and offered it to Methos. "Taste."

Methos sniffed suspiciously at the plastic, but refrained from tasting the unknown substance. "I prefer them toasted, thank you very much."

Montoya shrugged, and reached back into the first terrarium, deliberately pushing his thumb into a small crevice. When it emerged, a small brown scorpion clung to his skin, it's stinger deeply buried in the meat of his thumb. Montoya shook it off, and carefully replaced the cover. "Now. Smell."

Methos sniffed, catlike, nose wrinkling, never taking his eye off Montoya.

"It is subtle, but with experience, the difference is as clear as blue añejo and a bad margarita."

"I'll take your word for it," Methos said dryly, watching with fascination as the wound healed rapidly. Then he was distracted by the sight of Joe trying to sit up, despite MacLeod's efforts to keep him quiet.

"Easy, Joe, you need to rest. Slow down. Breathe."

"I need my guitar."

MacLeod looked around, then up at Montoya, in silent inquiry.

"I will get it," Montoya immediately offered politely, and left the three alone.

Joe grabbed Methos' arm. "Gotta take my boots off, Andy. My feet are killing me."

"Andy?" Methos repeated, momentarily confused. "Tell me what's wrong, Joe."

"Shhh, Andy, they're out there. Don't let them hear you."

"Andy?" MacLeod echoed, his face a study in dismay.

Methos halted MacLeod with a hand, and ushered him quickly to the door. "Neurotoxins. Expect occasional delusions," he said softly.

"But mistaking you for Andrew Cord?" Clearly the thought troubled MacLeod.

"I should be flattered. Andrew Cord figured out how to rescue Joe from a four day hell in Vietnam."

"But he was a murderer, Methos."

"There's one difference between Andrew Cord and us, MacLeod," Methos said without inflection. "Andrew didn't make a habit of leaving Joe behind in enemy territory."

"Listen, Methos, this isn't the time for..."

There was a small thump from the hallway behind the Immortals. Montoya stood there, white-faced, the guitar dropped at his feet. "Methos? The ancient is Methos?" And El Alacrán, the Lion of Sonora, took three shaking steps backwards, and turned to flee.

"Damn. MacLeod! Go drag him back here! I need that antivenin _now_."

*****  
"Damn!" MacLeod repeated the invective as he ran after Montoya. "Manolito!" Who was already heading toward a door leading to a magnificent courtyard.

MacLeod tackled him before he could raise the guards again. They rolled until the Highlander pinned him to the cool tiles. "Mano, what's wrong? What the hell are you doing?"

Face grey, eyes seeing another scene from another time, Montoya whispered, "El Demonio está en mi casa. ¡Es la hora final!!"

"Mano." MacLeod shook him, demanding his attention, trying to break the spell of one of the worst flashbacks he'd ever witnessed in an Immortal. "You've seen him, he's no demon."

"He is Methos! I can tell. I see the way he changes! One minute horseman dancing with a blade, next an unworldly scholar, then a doctor. I knew an Immortal, El Gato, he called himself. He told me stories of Methos...he boasted of their exploits together."

MacLeod nodded. "I knew El Gato. He was a madman. Methos is not. That's not to say Methos is a choir boy. He's been many things. But right now he's the doctor to a mortal that needs our help. We can talk about it later. Please help Joe." MacLeod shifted off of Montoya, but held onto him, calming his panic.

Montoya nodded. "Forgive me. I was shocked! I am shocked still...." He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts, his color returning, with an extra shade of embarrassment. "You must think me a cowardly fool."

MacLeod helped him sit, still gripping his arms, lending support. "Not when it comes to El Gato. How did you know him? You never mentioned him when I rode with you before."

"I hoped never to hear his name again." Montoya raised his eyes, and MacLeod glimpsed a black, roiling despair. "He was my first teacher."

"Mano...my friend..." MacLeod breathed, torn at the depths of his friend's shame at the confession. He had no words of comfort. Only actions. He drew him closer as his friend recovered himself.

The recovery was swift. Montoya shook himself away, raising himself from the floor and dusting off his shirt, as MacLeod did the same. "Enough. La familia must not see the Lion of Sonora like this," he smiled thinly. "They would have to get a new lion."

"None could match your mane," MacLeod gently tugged at a tuft of his fine black hair flying astray behind his ears. "We need to talk about this. But there's no time, now. You mentioned the house healer. Could we speed him along?"

"Mierda! Come!" Montoya lead him to a cool white lab, spotless and fully outfitted. There they found a willowy young woman charging a hypodermic, her face a mask of concentration. "But hurry Mary at your own risk. My daughter in law has far more bite than any lion. May I introduce Doctora María Calle Álvarez de Montoya."

"Don't believe Papá, he likes to scare away suitors." MacLeod studied her features ‒ campfire smoke and soft deerskin, yucca fruit and Athabaskan song skittered in his memory before she corrected Montoya, all business. "Dra. Mary Álvarez, when I'm working. My academic colleagues north of the border have a very short attention span. Papá tells me our guest has had a misadventure. It would be helpful if you had an exact estimate of the dosage."

Wordlessly Montoya took the broken flechette from his pocket and deposited it on the counter. Dra. Álvarez examined it with a complex frown, and sniffed the broken tube. "I will run tests on it to be sure. If it is a concentrate, there may not be enough anti-venin in all of Sonora," she said with some finality. "You had best take all we have. I will put in calls to specialists in Guaymas, and Hermosillo, maybe as far as Tecopan."

She handed the hypodermic to Montoya, then without a backward glance at the men, she left the room intent on her mission.

"Dr. Álvarez didn't seem too happy to help Joe."

"She has natural reservations about strangers. Including you, I am afraid. As you said, we must talk. But there is no time now." Montoya's boots clicked on the tiles as he strode quickly down the hall.

They returned inside to the scorpion room where Methos hovered over Joe, holding his wrist to check his pulse.

"The antivenin, Señor Montoya, all you have, now, or we lose him."

Montoya stared at Methos for a moment then walked up and handed him the hypodermic and vials, only a barely trembling hand revealing how ill at ease the eldest Immortal's presence made him feel. The doctor accepted them in a no nonsense brisk manner that calmed him more than idle words. He watched Methos quickly find a vein and give Joe the injection. "So, you knew Kronos?" Methos asked without looking up.

"Pardon?"

"El Gato." MacLeod said.

"He reads minds!" The shocked look returned.

MacLeod smirked, then said, "Not really, he'd be a lot easier to get along with if he did."

Methos laughed softly, but kept his eyes on Joe.

"He reads chronicles, not minds." Joe said to everyone's surprise, eyes opening briefly, then closing again.

"It's working! Thank you, Señor Montoya. The anti-venin begins to neutralize the toxin almost immediately," Methos confirmed. "It's the right solution." He left unspoken the question of whether all they had was enough.

MacLeod cleared his throat. "Please allow me to introduce you to an old friend of mine, Manolito Montoya. Mano, this is my – close friend, Methos, currently using the name Adam Pierson. I would take it as a great personal favor if you would both strive to leave each others heads in place."

"Such a diplomat..." Joe whispered, but this time didn't open his eyes. "Think of all the stories you'd miss out on..."

"Si."

"Rest, Joe."

"Perhaps, you are not so much a demon..." Mano acknowledged ruefully.

"I'm just a guy. Call me Adam. Everyone does. Everyone not ready to get their butt kicked."

He glared at MacLeod, who failed to look guilty when he said, "Sorry."

"Call me Mano." Montoya suddenly smiled, eyes gleaming, he asked, "Tell me, Adam, did you really take your first head with a small obsidian blade?"

Methos looked up at the ceiling, and sighed. "Don't you two young fellows have another Watcher renegade to hunt?"

Sudden movements from Joe turned Methos' attention away from the younger Immortals.

"No! Sorry, Mac. My fault. Watchers are my job," Joe turned on the bed, coughing and twisting in an effort to get more air. "My fault," he repeated anxiously, as Methos caught him and kept him from sliding off the bed in an attempt to go after the Highlander.

"Joe," MacLeod started to go to him.

"No." Methos stopped him with a hard shake of the head. "Get him out of here, Mano. The toxin magnifies anxiety. Joe can't rest while he's here. He watches him, even in his sleep."

Montoya glanced back to the Highlander, shrugged, and decided that obeying Methos was by far the safest alternative. "Come, MacLeod. We will ride, and talk, and plan, and maybe you will tell me all about these Watchers, and why your Mr. Dawson is so sorry." He drew the two of them away, sighing in relief as the nerve-jarring atavistic signal broadcast by the oldest Immortal faded by degrees.

"I don't like leaving him like this," MacLeod brooded.

"Even if the cure works, it will be an hour or more before it takes effect," Montoya said in a low voice as he moved them down the hall toward the sunny entryway. "The musician strikes me as a proud man. It would not help him to be embarrassed in his weakness by an audience."

"But Methos said it was already working," MacLeod hesitated, looking back.

"He tells a small, sinless lie, to try to make his friend believe it is so. But it will be an hour or more before he knows whether we had enough. I used my entire supply. There is no more to be had between here and Culiacan." Montoya regarded his friend with grave sympathy. "You speak as if he were your friend. I thought he was your spy."

"Watchers are chroniclers. The good ones, anyway. Like the bards spinning tales of Irish heroes. Joe is one of the best. He's been Watching me for over twenty years."

Montoya raised an eyebrow. "Indeed? Impressive. You must have many songs regaling your deeds," he teased, earning himself a quelling glare. Not that Montoya quelled easily. "Then why do we find your quite excellent bard an ocean away, spying on me?"

They were stepping out into the sun as MacLeod opened his mouth to protest. He was interrupted by the sound of many rifles cocking in the silent courtyard. Montoya's men brought all their weapons to bear on the center of MacLeod's chest.

"Ah. Momentito, MacLeod. Perhaps someone overheard my little speech about demons after all." Quickly, he reassured and dispersed his men to patrol the gates and fences of the vast estancia by truck, horse and all terrain vehicle, warning them that their quarry was probably armed and quite willing to kill even unarmed musicians under his protection. "Though you may laugh, some of our beliefs here have not strayed far from our ancestors," Montoya warned, quite seriously. "I've met a true demon."

"When I was young and foolish, I might have laughed. Not now. I've also met one," MacLeod held his hands aside, unthreatening. "More than one. Joe helped me fight a demon, once. No, twice," he confessed. "I wouldn't have..." MacLeod stumbled over the word 'won', "...come through it without his help."

Montoya relaxed an invisible guard he had held in MacLeod's presence ever since they had reunited. "So this time, he tried to take on his own demons alone? Where did he learn that kind of foolish courage, amigo?" Montoya poked MacLeod with a knowing grin. "So now, we will let him rest, and take up the fight together. Just like the old days." He waved at the departing hands. "My men will keep the criminal penned on the rancho, and we will find him, and perhaps hang him. Like the old days, no?" And now his smile belonged wholly to El Alacrán.

"We need to take him alive," MacLeod warned. "We have to find out what this is all about."

"I didn't say I'd hang him quickly," Montoya allowed. "Maybe I will take him back to Joe, and ask him. But do not forget that this is my land, and these are my people, MacLeod. Mi familia."

Montoya claimed two fresh horses for himself and MacLeod, turning out Big Brown and his own mount into a shaded paddock, and putting the hammerheaded stallion into a box stall. "He has a bad eye, that one. I don't want him anywhere near my mares."

MacLeod settled onto his grulla approvingly ‒ she had a light step and gathered solidly and willingly. "You always had a fine eye for the mares, Mano."

"And a firm hand on the stallions, too," Montoya laughed, slapping MacLeod hard on the back, and surged into a gallop, showering MacLeod with dust and grit. "Ride, Highlander! I wager the shirt off your back that I cut the renegade's trail before you!"

Spitting out a piece of gravel, MacLeod gathered the reins and rode.

 


	3. The Sting of the Scorpion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Mano's casa is everybody's casa...including a few uninvited guests.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
> All characters are fictional. Well, maybe not the big brown horse, but he's under alias.

 

"...Horton's my job...my fault he got away with..." Joe sank back, gritting his teeth against another wave of pain.

"Enough mea culpa's, Joe. I like you better when you're lapsed," Methos soothed, though the look he sent after MacLeod was more murderous than medicinal. "Guilt is vastly over-rated," he chided firmly.

"Sounds like a good epitaph," Joe managed to get one hand on Methos' shirt, and started to pull himself up.

"I'll carve it myself if you don't lie down and listen to your doctor," Methos said fiercely, disengaging himself. "Come on, we have to get you out of those prosthetics. Did you get out of them at all last night? How long have you had them on?"

Joe waved his good hand dismissively, mumbling "Nonayerlookout."

"That's what I thought," Methos eyed him accusingly. "Over twenty four hours. You know you can't afford any hot spots." He reached for Joe's belt buckle.

"I can do it," Joe protested, but the fingers on his right hand wouldn't hold.

"I can do it better," Methos gently moved Joe's hands away, eyeing the black necrotic spot growing in the center of his Watcher tattoo where the dart had entered. "I've had more practice."

"I bet you have," Joe grumbled. He allowed Methos to proceed without further complaint, though he hissed when a couple of hefty bruises and strap burns were uncovered as his legs came off. Methos was unhurried, and his hands were gentle following his sharp words, and Joe soon drifted. "Thanks, Doc. Those boots were sure killing me," he declared in a voice that echoed from another generation. "You going to give me another shot? That morphine, it's something, man."

Even if he had it, morphine was contraindicated. It would dangerously depress Joe's already overtaxed heart and breathing. Methos closed his eyes. "Sure, Joe. We've got lots." He reached up and tweaked a small bit of skin on Joe's shoulder. "Feel that? It should be a little cool going in, you'll feel it in just a minute."

Joe managed a ghost of a smile, drifting back from whatever purgatory he'd revisited, and reached up to grasp Methos' hand. "You big fibber."

"Oh pshaw, I'm more of a medium sized fibber. Did I ever tell you that I knew Samuel Clemens? Now _that_ man was a world class fibber! Even lied about his name. No, don't sit up, Joe, stay put for me." Methos settled him back down then held the undamaged wrist, checking Joe's pulse.

A solemn young woman appeared at the door, hesitating before entering to assess the occupants. Methos blinked, and recognized the woman with the rifle from the gate, though now she didn't seem to be carrying anything more dangerous than a pitcher and glass. He shifted on his seat, so he could watch both her and Joe.

Joe lit up at her appearance, which somewhat worried Methos, since the last time she had seen them she was tracking them through a rifle scope. Methos wasn't sure which decade Joe was inhabiting at the immediate moment, but he sported the daredevil grin of a far younger man. "I know you. You brought me beer. Watch out for this guy. He'll drink it all."

"No beer for you," Methos reproved, thanking her with a short nod for the water and asking for a drinking straw for Joe. "He needs to keep hydrated to flush out his system," Methos explained. "Señora...Montoya?" he fished carefully, turning up his harmless smile for her benefit.

His efforts earned him a quick, distrustful frown. "I am aware of the situation," she said, settling the tray at the bedside firmly.

"Mary. Her name is Mary," Joe said sternly. "Doctora María Calle Álvarez de Montoya, and don't you forget it, bub."

Joe's recitation surprised a smile from her, cracking her reserve, which she covered by straightening his sheet, and testing his pulse for herself. A shadow of the frown returned. "You will call me if there is a change," she stated in a softer voice. "I have some experiments to review." She left as quietly as she had entered.

Methos moved his chair to the other side of the bed, where the door wouldn't be at his back. He then returned his attention to monitoring Joe, for whom there was no comfortable position. One moment he had been restless and the next he drifted off until rousted once more by Methos' prattle. But Mary's appearance seemed to have centered Joe in the present for the time being.

"I saw her first," Joe announced suddenly, "At La Rana's Cantina. When you were face down in your chips."

"Not my finest hour," Methos admitted. "What caught your eye?"

"Are you kidding? All that anger. All that...passion. Just for me. It was in her eyes, man."

"Love at first sight?" Methos had seen many delusions in his day, but this was a unique turn.

"No, idiot. She hated my guts. I could see it all the way across the room. The fire...when she left, it was like the sun went down."

"You'll just have to show her the real you," Methos teased lightly. "Sweep her off her feet."

"Are you kidding? She's way out of my league." Joe spared precious air on a laugh. "Besides, the moment you or MacLeod step into the room, the rest of us mere mortals don't stand a chance. Someday I'll make up a song about it. See if I don't..." and Joe drifted off again.

Methos looked up, startled, as Mary handed him a straw. He hadn't heard her come in. He raised an eyebrow, curious about what she had heard. Impassive and unreadable, she silently straightened the bed.

"Joe is rarely wrong in his first impressions about people," Methos said quietly, drawing her aside. "Why were you at La Rana?"

Mary's head rose, and she looked at him defiantly. "I was there to kill him." In a quiet voice, she explained, as if describing a lab procedure. "One of Papá's investigators called and left a message that a relative of the man who killed my husband had come to town. It seemed...providential. Fated. I prepared to lure Mr. Dawson out into the alleys, where I would stab him in the heart and leave him for the whores to find. If Papá's men had not arrived so quickly with their own orders..." she shrugged tightly, "...It was not so fated, after all."

"And now?"

"He is not what I expected. I did not see his soul as well as he saw mine. But later, in the dark, when I had time to quiet my thoughts, and listen, his music..." Mary stopped at that, interrupted by their patient.

"The Chronicle. The book! I lost it!" Joe tried to sit up, disoriented.

Methos caught Joe before he slid out of bed, grandly unaware he was missing a couple of key pieces necessary for ambulation. "Hey Joe, stay here with me, I've got great new stories for you to record. Did I ever tell you about the time I came across a tiger in the catacombs under Rome? Talk about an unpleasant surprise! I was only carrying a twenty inch Gladius at the time. Though it solved the problem, 'twould've been so much less painful with a nice yard long blade. Joe?"

"I hear ya...ya got Twain beat..."

"It's true, Joe! How about this one, I was walking across America, of course it wasn't called that yet, just the land or the earth depending on the local patois..." Mary calmly ignored the story and handed him a fresh glass, silently reminding him to keep pressing the fluids.

Methos helped Joe sit up enough to sip from the straw, which she held to Joe's lips. After a long pull, the ailing bluesman brightened, and shyly said, "Thank you, Señora. I'm Joseph Dawson," as if meeting her for the first time.

"Si, I know. I am Mary Álvarez." The serious young woman seemed to warm to Joe, even as he misplaced his memory of her, and smiled at him, "I heard you playing last night, su música es bella."

Methos inquired no further about la Doctora Álvarez and her motives. Joe and his fixation on the unattainable ‒ that was another matter.

*****

 

"Mano! Wait up!" MacLeod urged his spry horse to a gallop so that he could close up with Montoya's sprinter. With a clatter of hooves, he pulled beside Montoya. Looking over he saw a feral smile on his fellow rider's face. This was the man he rode with in the days of Pancho Villa. He called out, "Be on guard! I've dealt with these rogue Watchers before. They have no honor and hunt us for what we are."

"And so shall we hunt them for what they are!"

"Mano ‒ !"

"Never fear, MacLeod, I will treat them as fairly as they treated their own ‒ Joseph."

"Just Joe," MacLeod automatically corrected on behalf of his friend, while he nodded at the sentiment. To be honest with himself, he had no sympathy to spare for the renegades. And while he never enjoyed a hanging, the Hunters tempted him into making an exception. They rode on together, both scanning the horizon ahead as they searched.

"This is an interesting concept, having a Watcher. And a Bard, at that! Perhaps I will ask him to compose many corridos in my honor!"

"He's _my_ Watcher," MacLeod reminded, oddly disturbed by Montoya's enthusiasm, and uncomfortably jealous at the thought of Joe composing songs about Manolito's victories.

"We will see," Montoya winked. "In the mean time, tell me about your ancient, Duncan."

MacLeod smiled. "_My_ ancient, hah!" He laughed, then shook his head. "OK. What do you want to know?"

"How did you become friends?"

"I tried to save him, fight someone who wanted his head. So he interfered, called the gendarmes on us. Told me to 'live, grow stronger, fight another day.'

"Odd. Perhaps the old ones have a different rule book."

"Or they're playing a different game."

"A different game, indeed," Montoya bared his teeth. "Like El Gato."

MacLeod shot a keen look at Montoya. "There aren't many who've met him, and survived," he observed carefully.

"Who said I survived?" he returned with sharp, black, humor. "My friend and I were riding fence. We surprised some comancheros. My friend Buck, he shot their leader. El Gato was dead. And then...the surprise was on us. No one guards a corpse. I didn't even take his gun. He rose from the dead, and laughed. I could not believe it, and I was slow. Too slow. Buck paid for my mistake."

"Your first death. You never told me," MacLeod laid his hand on Montoya's shoulder and squeezed in empathy. "First deaths are always hard."

There was unspoken horror in Montoya's eyes as he pulled away from MacLeod's touch. "You have no idea how hard." He shook out his reins and turned away. "Come, we have work."

They arrived at the oasis and rousted the settling vultures. Montoya nudged the body over with a delicate twist of his boot. "The dart gun que el Señor Dawson mentioned to your friend is gone. It could have been very useful."

MacLeod marked where Joe had first landed, reading the signs he had missed in the confusion and rush before. He noted the blood on the rusty tines of wire, and the places where his fingers had scratched for a weapon. He saw where Joe had pulled himself up, alone and unaided.

Montoya had seen, too. "He is a fighter, this one," he said with approval.

"Muy terco. Joe's as stubborn as they come."

Like ghosts, they searched the sands of the oasis for sign, alert for ambush, though the calm, hungry vultures perched on the palms overhead seemed to indicate that they were the only intruders keeping them from lunch. Montoya found a broken palm branch that had been used to erase tracks south of the body. But it was MacLeod who cut the trail of the second Hunter, in the tall thorn bushes a hundred yards east of the depression where the oasis caught storm runoffs.

"Here. Tracks. One man, small feet, leading a horse, missing a couple of nails in the rear shoe."

"If he gets through that pass, we lose him on the main road to Hermosillo," Montoya observed as he brought up the horses, shading his eyes as he pointed eastward toward the tangle of canyons and rough coastal mountains. "But my men will stop him on the pass."

MacLeod mounted on the fly, pointing at the trail angling north. "No. The tracks are heading to the hacienda. Somehow, he knows all your men are out watching the roads. One step ahead of us. Again." Reflexively, he reached for his cell to warn Methos and Joe, but swore when Methos' cycled to voice mail, and Joe's seemed to be off line. He might as well be using polished mirrors or the clan drums.

Montoya had his own phone out, and was speaking in rapid fire Spanish, giving his horse his head while he remonstrated and barked out orders that were apparently not being particularly well obeyed. Finally, he snapped it shut.

MacLeod pulled closer, then had to give ground as the bushes closed in. "Who was that?" he yelled over the hoofbeats.

"My daughter Mary. Daughter-in-law. The good Doctora. I sent her away with the rest of the children and abuelas, when I first heard there might be more spies gathering. I wanted them safe in the city. But she is muy terca, very stubborn too, and she came back when she heard about Horton's brother-in-law. Horton and his men killed her husband."

MacLeod pulled up stirrup to stirrup as the trail momentarily widened. "Does she know Joe's a Watcher?"

"She knows what I know, MacLeod. Which is not enough."

*****  
Joe seemed to be improving. The delusional flashes had receded, and his heart no longer raced under Methos' palm. Mary's frequent visits made him sit up and pay attention, even as he battled the poison. Methos blessed that stiff, sinful core of pride that gave him just that extra bit of energy to fight the toxin. Still, relapse was a real danger, more probable than possible, given the large dose. A cold, logical and relentless voice in Methos' head whispered that they had merely bought time, and a slower death.

Ruthlessly, Methos repressed the whispers, and plied Joe with as much water as he could keep down, while offering a near constant tumble of stories. He only stopped when la Doctora Álvarez appeared with more to drink, or towels filled with cracked ice to ease the pain and swelling in Joe's forearm. When she appeared, Joe watched her with a fevered intensity, then dropped his gaze and pulled up the sheet in a manner that Methos found uncharacteristically shy. Methos put it down to heightened anxiety, a common symptom generated by the venom.

"What's up, Joe?" he teased, as she left the room. "I know you've seen a pretty girl in bed, before."

"Shut up, Adam," Joe sulked. "You know damn well no one sees the bartender when you or Mac are in the room."

"Maybe you should be buying more drinks for the ladies than for MacLeod," Methos reproved.

"No more free drinks for Immortal customers, check," Joe agreed solemnly.

"Within reason," Methos immediately hedged. He wondered if so long a period of time dwelling in the shadow of the Highlander had resulted in Joe's pride taking as much of a beating over the years as his body, which Joe had a distressing tendency to leave around in harms way. "You know MacLeod's hard-wired to flirt. I know how hard it is for us mere guys to be noticed in the glowing zone of his eminence."

"Yeah, yeah, and sure you do, Professor Adam 'Come hither' Pierson." Joe managed a devilish gleam. "I've got to stop buying you drinks, too. It's wrecking my rep as a ladies man."

"Hey, now, let's not get hasty," Adam objected. "That's just professional courtesy. And you get to write it off as a business expense."

"That didn't fly even before MacLeod gave me the heave ho," Joe said apologetically. "The bean counters are immune to your charms."

"Bureaucracy will bring an end to us all, Joe," Methos said sorrowfully.

"Can't argue with that."

Mary entered again, with a new beverage. "Cherry juice, to help the inflammation," she explained.

Joe hitched himself up, again wary in her presence. "I apologize for the trouble," he said gravely, holding her gaze until Methos poked him with the straw.

"It is not trouble. It is my family duty," she responded, just as gravely.

Methos wondered what the hell he had just missed.

"How does your wrist feel now?" she inquired, ignoring Methos entirely. "Is the pain still very bad?"

Joe shrugged one-sidedly, which told Methos the pain was, indeed, still very bad. "Tingling some. Fingers are numb," he did admit. His attempt to make a fist left him white and shaking, and both of his minders frowning.

"The joints closer to the wound will take longer to recover," she warned, smoothing out his fingers.

"But they will recover," Joe said stubbornly. He didn't bother to look for false assurances.

Mary glanced down at Methos for the first time, as if assessing his commitment to his patient. Methos felt a touch insulted by the lack of confidence in her gaze. "You seem to know a lot about the symptoms," Methos matched her look with just a touch of skepticism of his own.

"I have a masters degree in immunology from the University of Arizona, and my doctoral thesis was on biotoxins." Mary Álvarez met him stare for stare.

"Never underestimate women. They'll be the death of you," Methos muttered in an undertone meant only for Joe.

Joe's unexpected laugh broke their concentration. "I should live long enough to be so lucky."

"¡Buena suerte!," Mary offered, with a dangerous smile of her own.

Under the sun-singed tan Joe had picked up during his week in Mexico, he warmed to a deeper red.

Methos decided to derail that train of thought. Joe's real heart had been strained enough, without going galloping again after a woman he barely knew.

"Who in their right mind milks scorpions to study? Maybe we'll find the buyer. Can't be that damn easy to fill those darts."

"It isn't easy," Mary affirmed, surprised. "But it isn't excessively difficult, either, if you know how to handle the specimens. We draw our own for experiments here."

"Show me," Methos straightened, his eyes cold. "I'll need a list of every provider you know." If Joe didn't make it through, he intended to make some visitations.

*****  
MacLeod nodded to Montoya as they urged their horses to set a fast pace back toward the hacienda. MacLeod shouted above the beat of horse hooves, "I'm thinking that while Joe was a main target, he was also being used as bait."

"For your Methos!"

"For his alter ego, Adam Pierson, former Watcher, and fledgling Immortal ‒ or so they believe. Adam was a wildcard who marched into the slaughter. A bonus they couldn't resist. Joe tries to watch his back."

"So I discovered," Montoya exhaled loudly through clenched teeth. "What was one of our own thinking, deliberately living amongst the enemy?"

"According to him it's a great place to hide – searching for Methos! He loved it. He considers some Watchers his friends. Or at least, friends with issues."

"El Gato was his friend."

MacLeod nodded. "And Methos hid from him for more than twenty centuries before Kronos caught up with him. Mano, I can't explain him. I can't claim to even understand him. You try to understand a being fifty centuries old. But he is my friend. I trust him ‒ as much as you can trust any of us."

"Fifty centuries...it beggars belief," Montoya shook his head, peering at MacLeod. "You have much faith in him. And Dawson, no?"

"Yes! Joe and I don't always see eye to eye. My feelings about the Watchers are closer to yours. I hate being spied on. But Joe has risked his life for me, too. And that...." MacLeod stopped speaking suddenly.

"And that's the problem, amigo? Mortal friends dying because of the careless violence of our existence."

"Aye."

"Let there be no more today." Montoya nudged his mount to greater speed, and MacLeod followed, matching the breakneck pace.

****  
As Methos began to follow Mary across the lab to the station where she milked scorpions for their venom, they heard dogs outside barking. The alarm raised was sharp and insistent, not the bark of bored dogs.

"We have company. Stay with Joe!" Methos dashed out of the lab and returned to Joe's room, where his coat had been discarded near Joe's bed, cursing himself for leaving it behind. He extracted his broadsword from its sheath, and rounded upon Mary, who had followed a bit too closely. "Lock the doors behind me," he ordered.

Mary nodded, and added calmly, "After I reload," as Methos rushed away down the long hallway.

He stealthily made his way to a window overlooking the outer courtyard and slipped out into the main courtyard. Lowering his stance, he darted from one point of concealment to the next, behind a column or palm, watching and listening as he went. Soon enough he got a glimpse of movement and waited for the Hunter to come to him. If Death was his middle name then Patience was his surname. He watched as the Watcher assassin, rifle in one hand, cautiously approached the window Methos had left open. Finally – with great speed – Methos slipped behind the man and tapped him on the shoulder.

The intruder jumped and turned to find a sword pointing at his chest. Methos' smile was horrific ‒ so riveting that the Hunter never heard the shot that pierced his back and dropped him face-first on the patio.

Methos looked through the window and saw Mary holding a smoking Colt .45 in both hands. "You spoiled my fun," he complained.

"Sorry. You were taking too long."

"Patience is a virtue, my dear. I thought you were going to lock the doors."

"And leave the window open?"

*****  
Montoya and MacLeod raised a cloud of dust as they slid their horses to a sudden stop inside the unguarded gate of the hacienda and looped their reins over the hitching rail. "I thought there was a sentry?" MacLeod asked as he swung down from the saddle and loosened the girth, scanning for an ambush.

Mano smiled as if he had no cares in the world, his hands automatically easing his horse's gear, before moving to his sword. "There was." His chin moved to a billowing bugambilia plant, that also seemed to have grown a pair of boots near its roots. They heard a groan, and a soft curse. Mano bent to check his man. "He will live. Though I think there are many corrals to clean in his future."

"Our Hunter's tracks," MacLeod pointed to a set of tracks that rounded the corner of the hacienda.

The sound of a shot echoed off the rocks. They dashed around the corner to the side window where Methos stood with a body at his feet. Reluctantly, MacLeod lowered his sword as they approached.

Mary chided sternly, "¡Apúrate! He's getting blood on the patio."

"Well you're the one that shot him, I was going to play with him for awhile."

Out of breath and astonished, the new arrivals watched in wonder at Mary leaning out the window bickering with Methos about the body oozing blood.

Montoya pivoted lightly around Methos and went to the window, insinuating himself between Mary and the body. He frowned at the still smoking gun, and gently pushed the heated barrel down. "Is he our man, MacLeod?" he asked, staring at the body. There was only a rifle clutched in a still hand. "The dart gun is not here."

MacLeod approached more slowly, taking in the bullet hole in the victim's back, and the position of the body, and the large, shiny, crocodile skin cowboy boots. Very large, shiny, crocodile skin cowboy boots, with a sharply pointed toe. "This wasn't the man who left the small tracks in the oasis, but still a Hunter, I'll wager." MacLeod turned over his left wrist, to expose the Watcher trefoil.

Methos studied the fallen man's face. "I've seen him. In Geneva, I think. He was a student. In the same class cohort as Vemas' son." Then Methos looked around, his head cocked, listening. The dogs. Instead of greeting their master on the patio, they were still barking...on the other side of the house. "Shit! Joe's alone. You were supposed to stay with Joe!" Methos cast such a dangerous look toward Mary that Montoya's rapier twitched, even as he paled.

MacLeod sidled between them drawing Montoya's attention to himself. "I'll take the left side." He nodded toward that direction, and with a flick of his hand motioned Mano to encircle the house from the right.

Methos started to climb back in the window, MacLeod stopped him for a moment by placing a hand on his shoulder and said, "Adam, turn on your damn phone."

"When I get back to Joe. After hearing that shot he's probably back in Khe Sanh trying to dig a foxhole." And then Methos was gone, already moving into the shadows of the hacienda's hallway.

"Mary, I want you in the safe room, keeping an eye on the cameras. Call me if..." But Montoya was talking to air.

MacLeod repeated the hand signal indicating one side of the hacienda and turned the other direction, calling back over his shoulder as he disappeared, "I'll meet you at the French doors." Montoya swore in staccato Spanish, and slid away.

*****  
Joe edged himself up against the headboard, inch by painful inch. His legs were too far away. Methos must have done that on purpose, before he grabbed his sword and left. He didn't do things without purpose. There was always a plan. Sometimes it was a bad plan, like that stunt he pulled with Christine Salzer, but there was always a plan. The thing was, Joe never figured on playing the tethered goat in one of those plans. It just didn't sit right with him, waiting around like this. Masquerading as bait.

On the other hand (and with that thought Joe lifted up his left hand to check that it still worked, because the right wasn't cooperating at all), if Methos needed a tethered goat for his plan, Joe was going to be the best damn goat the old Immortal ever staked out. That'd show 'em. Besides, bait was about all he was good for, the condition he was in. Buzzards were circling. He closed his eyes. They went for the eyes, first.

The sharp report of a handgun going off down the hallway brought Joe back to the present. And there, in front of him, stalked his nemesis. "Justine. I was afraid it was you. Being assigned to take over MacLeod's chronicle ‒ that wasn't enough for you? You just had to moonlight." Justine was dressed in a loose white shirt and jeans, and could have easily from a distance have been taken for one of the ranch hands. She had probably ridden right through the gates after the vaqueros had left to guard the perimeter.

"I got tired of watching MacLeod shag the snow bunnies, and I've been wanting to see you pay for a long time now. Vemas was my mentor. You got him killed." The quarry gripped the dart gun hard, but held it far too steadily for Joe's peace of mind. "How did you figure it out?"

Joe sighed. Vemas had a reputation for being very attentive of his handpicked students. Especially the women. "It had to be someone who knew where I was, as well as someone who knew Adam followed me down here. It's a pretty short list, really, when you add in someone who knew Adam was Immortal."

"And not really named 'Adam', at all. You don't need to keep up the pathetic pretense, anymore. I know he's Methos."

Joe sighed. "Methos was right. Mac really does need to stop bandying that name around." Joe studied his options. Play out the bait line until the end, or throw something. Like a pillow. Not a palm frond in sight. Bait it was. "You realize he's going to be back, any second," he said in sincere warning. "I don't want to see what happens to you then. Really. I don't."

"He didn't even have a gun," Justine scoffed. "My associate has already taken him out. By now, he probably took his head as well." She was pleased when Joe couldn't hide a flinch. "And MacLeod and Montoya are still out chasing shadows, while that black spot on your wrist grows bigger, and you grow weaker, and the poison eats up the nerves in your wrist and the base of your brain, and melts your internal organs. So much for the loyalty of your Immortal friends, Joe. Sic transit..."

Joe smiled weakly. "Actually, he's standing right behind you. You really should put down that gun."

"Like I'd believe that old saw. And even if one of them did make it back, I still have this pointed right at you, and I only need a half a second to pull the trigger. Care for another shot?"

"You don't think you could be distracted?"

"By what...chiseled good looks?" she scoffed.

Joe closed his eyes. "Don't say I never warned you."

And then, Methos reached out quite gingerly, and dropped a squirming light amber scorpion just inside the collar of Justine's loose white shirt.

Justine jumped and shrieked. With her left hand she reached to grab the crawling sensation on her back, and turned around quickly, which delivered the wrist of her weapon wielding hand into Methos' strong grip. He plucked the dart gun from her hand easily, then dragged her toward Dawson's sickbed where he handed the gun to Joe. "We can talk better without that nasty thing. Stop that!" He demanded as Justine struggled.

"Get it off!" Justine yelled angrily, and Methos relented just long enough to pull her tucked-in shirt out and shake the scorpion loose. It dropped to the floor and dashed to relative safety under Joe's bed.

"Happy now?" Methos asked mildly.

Justine found a way to immediately repay the favor. With her hard, narrow bootheel she brutally stomped down on Methos' foot. Then she reached down to her ankle sheath and drew her stiletto, quickly thrusting the blade into his thigh.

"Damn it!" Methos shouted. He pushed her away, but she held onto the knife, pulling it back for another strike. Arterial blood blossomed briefly, leaving a red gush on his jeans, which stopped growing with a blue electric flicker. He swore in old Greek and grabbed her loose hand, jerking her hard enough to interfere with the aim of her next thrust.

"Abomination!" She screamed, drawing back for another plunge. Methos dodged again. He almost immediately realized his error.

The deafening boom of a Colt .45 inside the tiled room surprised them both, though for Justine it was but a brief shock followed by darkness as the bullet passed between her number nine and ten left ribs, through her heart, continuing through her rib cage, exiting her lower chest then lodging in Methos' stomach. The Immortal bowed over the wound, inadvertently placing himself between Justine and Joe's palsied aim, intercepting the dart below his scapula. He sank to his knees holding his stomach with one hand and trying to reach the dart in his back with the other, finally dropping in a graceless heap next to Justine.

"Oops!" Joe said, prying the gun out of his own clenched hand with difficulty, and letting it fall to the floor. "I really didn't mean to shoot him. This time."

Mary sighed. "Is his timing always so bad? Or perhaps, so good? No worries, Joe. Now I collect his blood. Immortals can be an excellent source of quickly produced antivenin. Excellent NK cells. You need more of the serum than I had on hand. Very lucky for you."

Joe watched in wonder as Mary stepped around the bodies, and reached into a drawer under the terrariums where she retrieved a needle and vials. "Lucky me..." Experimentally, he rubbed his thumb and fingers together. Still numb. "Lucky me."

*****  
MacLeod and Montoya circled each side of the hacienda at a rapid pace, discovering nothing outdoors, then met back up at the French doors just before they heard another gunshot. With drawn swords they rushed inside and ran down the corridor toward the room where Joe rested.

"Reminds me of Gila." Mano whispered as they quietly ran down the hall. "Do you remember? Every time we turned around another scoundrel would pop up for us to chase!"

"Or to chase us," MacLeod reminded, "Aye. I thought we'd never get out of that snake pit."

"Hopefully, more than just you and I will survive this time."

They paused momentarily on either side of the doorway, made eye contact, nodded, then burst inside.

Two bodies lay amongst pools of blood on the tile floor. One Immortal, and one truly gone. Dawson sat up in bed, breathing labored, but attention fully trained on Mary where she knelt next to Methos' still body – skillfully filling many vials with the ancient Immortal's blood.

"What are you doing?" MacLeod protested, then saw the flechette, which gave him an inkling of what Mary was attempting. He transferred his attention to Joe. "You OK?" He smiled in support as his friend nodded, though Joe's pallor did little to reassure him.

"I'm OK. Justine's dead. And Adam – well, I'd like to be somewhere else when he comes around."

"Who was this Justine?" Montoya demanded.

Joe sighed. "She was Mac's new Watcher. She'd been Vemas' student. You'll have to have Mac tell you the whole sordid tale." Dawson sank back on his pillows, clearly drained after his adrenaline storm.

Kneeling down next to Mary, MacLeod searched Methos for wounds with battlefield-medic efficiency. "What happened to him?"

Mary answered with a trace of humor in her voice as she finished her vampiring, "First, Justine stabbed him in the thigh, then when I shot her the bullet passed through her into his stomach, and finally when Justine fell Joe hit him with the dart instead of her. They should have stayed on the beach."

"He should've stayed still, dammit. He practically injected himself," Joe complained.

"You can use his blood? Even though he's dead?"

"I'm going to centrifuge off the serum. If he is an old one, as you all claim him to be, it should be just the thing for helping Joe – very fast reaction. How old are you?"

"Young, very young!"

Mano laughed. "He's thrice as old as I, Mary."

"Hm..." Mary stood up, taking her red treasure over to the lab equipment to process. "I wonder if we should add some of yours. This has never been done with a dead man's blood before." She set aside the samples of Methos' blood, retrieved a fresh stack of tubes and a sharpie, and returned to Duncan. Without asking his permission, she grabbed his arm and swiftly drew a sample before he could protest, stunned as he was by the suddenness of the jab. "Mano...?"

Montoya just grinned, and shrugged. "She does that to me all the time. It is better to say yes."

"Ah Gods!" Methos abruptly came around with a pained exclamation. "Bloody hell!" He sat up, hands latching onto his throbbing temples. "Stop the pounding. Gods, I hurt everywhere."

"You're having a clumsy day aren't you?" Mac suggested, but with a smile. He was greatly relieved to have both Methos and Joe back, battered but still alive. Solicitously, he helped Methos get to his feet and stumble over to the chair next to Joe. "Getting run over by horses, shot, stabbed..."

"...Injecting yourself with poison..."

"Injected myself!" Methos looked at Joe whose eyes were closed too tightly. "Joseph Michael Dawson!"

Joe sighed and opened his eyes. "Man. You look like shit."

"Pot. Kettle."

"You know you look kind of arty when you twinkle all blue like that?" Joe observed helpfully.

Sparks flared around the edges of Methos' body as he completed healing, lending a bit of real fire to his glare. "Oops? That's all you could say? Oops?"

Joe sighed and fidgeted as MacLeod tried to make him more comfortable. "Seemed to cover the topic at the time. You weren't going to survive a lengthy apology," he pointed out logically. "Sorry about that."

"You're a better shot than that, Joe. I've seen you hit MacLeod square in the back at 30 paces."

"Yeah, yeah, rub it in. I'm off my game today," Joe shrugged. "Serves you right for not listening to me back at the bar."

"Is that what you told Mac when you shot him in the back?"

"Standing right here," MacLeod warned sternly, with absolutely no effect.

"Nah. He's not quite so easily amused as you are."

"Good point," Methos allowed, mollified. "Still, that flechette hurt like hell."

"Tell me about it," Joe agreed dryly. "Why don't you change that shirt? Our luggage is around here somewhere. I get the feeling Mary will shoot you again if you drip on the upholstery."

Methos nodded, and spared a measuring glance at Mary, running the centrifuge. Methos rubbed at his arm where he'd been siphoned, while watching Mary work. "Is that my blood?"

"Of course," Mary confirmed. "You're the Immortal that conveniently injected himself with the largest source of the correct scorpion venom available from here to Tepec. Speaking of which, someone should retrieve the wee one you used on Justine. It is probably not very happy right now."

Joe eyed the edge of the bed. "What does a happy scorpion look like?"

Clicking his teeth in disapproval, Montoya inspected his looted terrarium, and began a thorough search for the small scorpion. "Well fed, safe under it's roof, with many niños riding on it's back, just like us."

"I had to ask," Joe sighed, now trying to watch all four corners of the bed as Montoya crawled underneath.

"I wonder if she knows what she is doing?" MacLeod whispered, noticing how Methos watched Mary's preparations with narrowed concentration.

"It's not like it'll make anything worse," Joe answered for them both, rubbing the tips of two fingers together experimentally. MacLeod didn't like the resigned look on his face. "Immortal blood is inert in mortals. Harmless."

"That's what they hammer in at the academy," Methos allowed. "Let on otherwise and we'll be hip deep in necromancers and vivisectionists again, doing a brisk trade in Immortals. Please. Let's not."

"From your mouth to God's ear," Joe muttered under his breath.

MacLeod and Methos leaned closer. "What was that?"

"I said, 'While you are updating your sartorial splendor, you might check around and make sure all the cameras around this place are turned off, and the backups erased." He stopped to catch his breath, but raising the kernal of the alarm was enough.

"He's right," MacLeod straightened, and crossed glances with Methos. "Whatever the good Doctora is cooking up, I don't think we want a record. In fact, I don't think we want any proof lying around that we've ever been here at all. You know the Tribunal. No sense of humor."

Methos, swearing, struggled to his feet and was on his way before MacLeod finished the sentence, with only a minor leg hitch and some squelching to suggest the ordeal he had just experienced. "Mac, stay with Joe."

Unfazed by his murderous demeanor, Mary observed archly as he limped past her, "I hope you didn't bleed all over that chair. It has been in Papá's family for six generations."

"Color me impressed," he grumped in her general direction as he left the room. Blithely, Mary ignored him and continued her work on the serum.

Methos was gone for far longer than it took to change a shirt. His jaw was set when he returned. "Someone has tapped the video feed in some of your security cameras. Let's hope the upload is not live, just harvested when opportunity presents. You need to sweep the whole hacienda before this is over, Señor Montoya."

"All of the rancho," Montoya, who had been unusually silent since they had returned, stood and facing Methos, his pride stung. "I will have an end to this spying," he vowed. "Or I will have an end to your Watchers."

"Worse men than you have tried," Methos said truthfully, baring his teeth. "Maybe even worse men than me."

Montoya seemed unconvinced, as he grimly returned to his search.

MacLeod squeezed Methos' shoulder as he went by, murmuring, "Nice shirt," MacLeod noted the garish floral pattern that hung just a little large on Methos' frame. The new jeans were even baggier. "But it undercuts your 'Ravening Ancient' act. You look like a colorblind skateboarder."

"Blame Joe. I couldn't find my bag. Who knew he had a fetish for Hawaiian shirts?"

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" MacLeod teased, then went over to where Mano knelt by Justine's body to help him search for his lost pet. "Maybe Joe is starting a fad?"

"Don't be dissing my fashion sense," Joe roused at their words, squinting against the glare. "I was on assignment. Playing a tourist. What's your excuse?"

Methos started to laugh then groaned, rubbing his temple. "I'm telling Amy."

"Telling Amy what?"

"Everything embarrassing about you that I can remember, along with a few fun facts I will make up when my brain isn't hurting so much. Including your appalling taste in beachwear."

"I guess that's fair," Joe nodded, with an abstracted air, as if he were listening to a song on a radio only he could hear. MacLeod glanced up from where he searched to see Joe's fingers tapping a private rhythm on the bedsheet, a slightly irregular double tap. Too fast. Then, too slow.

"Who is Amy?" Mary asked from the table where she worked, with more than a hint of interest in Joe's business.

"My daughter. She watches Adam, occasionally," Joe answered easily, distantly. MacLeod glanced at Methos, remembering how closely Joe usually held his secrets about his family, and especially his daughter.

"We have an arrangement that I'm not to do anything interesting while she's not around," Methos amended, frowning for a moment before wiping all expression but that of professional curiosity. He reached for Joe's pulse point.

"You tell Amy on me, I tell on you," Joe promised, gently pushing his hand away.

To MacLeod's ear his voice lacked its usual conviction. He moved closer to the bed, opposite Methos, taking the time to really observe his friend. He took Joe's wrist, finding his pulse, not allowing himself to be swayed by Joe's exasperated sigh. Too fast. Too weak.

"You know what it says," Joe protested, and MacLeod allowed him to pull away. His voice dropped for their ears only. "It was a good run, all things considered."

"It is a good run," Methos corrected.

MacLeod's heart twinged. "Don't you quit on me, Joe."

"I never quit on you or anyone," Joe warned, his distraction burning away at the affront. "That goes double for you, Methos," he added, fire rekindling in his eye.

Methos nodded, summoning a thin smile. "Keep it that way. Buddy."

"Death on a horse, my ass," Joe murmured, sinking deeper into the pillows. "Fraud."

"Speaking of Amy, do you want to talk to her?" MacLeod's cell phone was already in his hand, like a peace offering.

Joe stared at the phone for a long moment, before shaking his head. "She think's I'm watching the sun go down on the Sea of Cortez. Don't mess that up."

MacLeod saw Methos inhale to speak, then stop himself as Joe continued, "There is something you can do. I left some stuff for her. At Shakespeare and Company. Just in case."

"Just in case you go off on your own and start poking sticks at dangerous Immortals?" MacLeod couldn't help himself asking, sending an apologetic look to Montoya.

"Just in case you go off on your own and get poisoned by a rare arthropod?" Methos added, with no apologies at all.

"Yeah," Joe agreed with a ghost of a grin. "Just in case." He paused, catching his breath. "It's just scraps. Junk. Family photos. Nothing important."

MacLeod saw Methos glance down, toward the purpling half moons under Joe's nail beds.

"We'll find it, Joe," Methos promised quickly. "Don't let it worry you. You'll wish we hadn't, when we post your prom pictures on the internet. Did you have a snazzy tux?"

"You bet. An' then I'll post that shot I have of you and Mac and the sporran," Joe wheezed.

MacLeod turned away briefly hiding his face from his friends, mastering the fear he felt for Joe's life. "I can see that I'll have to start keeping a better watch on you two." There was a slight catch in his voice.

"Says the man who watches the man who watches his Watcher?" Methos asked. That succeeded in bringing slight smiles to Joe and MacLeod, for a moment at least.

"Methos will have to invent a new tattoo..." Joe muttered, to Montoya's confusion, and MacLeod's dismay.

Methos just nodded, bemused. "Hush, Joe. Breathe."

****  
Montoya finally located the scorpion and removed it safely to a terrarium, then returned to stare sadly at Justine's corpse. "I'll need help with the body, Duncan. This is something I will not ask my men to do."

Grateful for the fresh air, MacLeod helped Mano pack Justine's body outside. They stumbled slowly down the hall, which they had so recently rushed up, "Where do you want to take her?"

"To the cemetery next to the chapel. It is more respect than she would have given us. Or your friend."

When they reached the chapel they set their burden down on the hard ground amongst the white stone crosses. Mano called up his crew chief on his cell, and gave some of his outriders instructions about disposing of the other two bodies, claiming they would be rather less squeamish and more thorough about dealing with the remains of the male invaders. "It's old-fashioned, I know," Montoya confessed. "But it is better they do not know about the woman's death, anyway. There would be gossip."

MacLeod nodded, and bent to the task, occasionally casting an uneasy glance back to the hacienda, where Methos kept watch with Mary over Joe. When they had tamped down the turned earth, he leaned on his shovel. "You didn't tell me that your daughter-in-law was so dangerous."

Montoya took MacLeod's shoulder in a firm grip. "All women are unsafe. Didn't I teach you that?"

MacLeod covered Montoya's hand with his own, and grinned. "I think it was Ana Rosalita in Hermosillo who taught us both. We were lucky to get away with both heads."

"All four, you mean. Never underestimate a woman scorned," Montoya reminded with a knowing grin. "This Watcher of mine, he is dangerous too, no?"

"Joe's a lot of things, but safe is not one of them," MacLeod acknowledged. "And he's still my Watcher," he added firmly.

"We shall see," Montoya teased, as they cleaned up the tools and washed the cemetery dirt away. "Now. Tell me how many men this gang of Vemas has, and where we can find them. I am feeling muy peligroso, myself."

An offshore breeze ruffled the palm fronds and cooled the Immortals as they finished putting away the shovels, picks and other tools of grave preparation. They washed their hands and faces at the same spigot they had used to wash the dirt off the tools. MacLeod shook his head in doubt as he tried to answer Montoya's question.

"It's hard to know how many players we're facing when there aren't any survivors to question. Three could be all there were. I think Joe suspects there are more."

Montoya nodded. "Si. Will they send more soon?"

"If they have good sense, no..." The rattling buzz of the ancient jangled them both into alertness. Methos quietly padded towards them down the brick pavers.

"Who are you accusing of having good sense?" He asked, remarkably alert and spry for one so recently deceased. "Certainly no one I've spoken with recently."

MacLeod just smiled, not rising to the opening line. Methos' mild sarcasm and relaxed and open stance told him that Joe's condition, if not good, was not significantly worse. Yet.

Montoya repeated his question for Methos. "Do you think the Watchers will send more spies?"

"Always. Especially those they want to test, like Joe. In the old days, dangerous Immortals culled inept Watchers."

"Test?" MacLeod asked.

"That's what this has been – a test. A test someone engineered him to fail, throwing the blame on Montoya. If Joe handles the situation with the right balance of innocence and audacity, he can turn it around, and come out smelling like a rose. The fate of Vemas' proteges will remain a mystery."

"Methos, how the hell is he going to pull that off?"

"Mac, he just tells the truth. Joe was the only Watcher assigned to make contact with Montoya. He has no backup. All he needed were photos, but his unexpected invited to play music for Montoya – no Watcher worth his salt would ignore a chance like that, no matter how dangerous the target. He gets in, he gets out, he gets a gold star. Neither you nor Justine are supposed to be in this hemisphere. Hey, they may even figure you got rid of her in the Alps. Stabbed her with a ski pole and dropped her into a crevasse."

"What!"

"Sorry, Mac, but you have a dreadful reputation. Joe's PR can only go so far. Even when he waxes poetic about the 'noblest man alive'," Methos shook his head, part in humor and part in sympathy at MacLeod's reaction. "Unfair, I know."

Montoya considered Methos' words. "And what is your part in this adventure?"

"None, in the beginning. I just came for the sun and cerveza. At least, until I heard the notorious 'El Alacrán' was in town. You see, _you_ don't have a peaceful reputation either."

"Me?"

"You. I just came to Mexico to keep an eye on an old friend. I planned on catching some sun on the beach. I had no idea at the time that Joe was supposed to get a sighting of the Scourge of Sonora. Had I known, I would have suggested Bora Bora or Finland or Outer Mongolia..."

"That's the Lion of Sonora," Montoya corrected with a scowl. "Hmm. I find myself torn between being proud and being insulted."

"Perhaps, 'misunderstood'?" MacLeod suggested.

"Indeed. Misjudged certainly."

Methos glanced at the fresh-turned earth in the graveyard, and a half a dozen unmarked mounds beyond. "I'd stick with misunderstood."

*****

Mary was as quick with a hypo as she was with a gun and gave Joe the new antivenin injection before he could raise even a token protest. Afterward, she began massaging an ointment into his affected fingers.

"We must keep the circulation flowing, to prevent the damage from becoming permanent. It would be a crime against music lovers if you could not play!"

Flustered, on top of exhausted, Joe smiled weakly – not at all his usual light-the-night up grin – but managed to rally enough to say, "Thank you, Señora, you're too kind."

"Not at all, Mr. Dawson."

"Please, call me Joe." Joe shifted as the muscles in his arm clenched around the injection site, twitching oddly.

"Mary," she decisively reciprocated in the first name ceremony, which was followed by a surprisingly comfortable silence between them as Mary gently worked the ointment into his fingers. It was accompanied by a tingling of waking tissue, and while not exactly a pleasant sensation, it was better than numbness and so gave Joe a psychological boost.

"It's doing something, I can feel my fingers again."

"Good." She looked up from his fingers, into his eyes. He studied her thoughtfully despite his exhaustion and pain.

"I'm not like those other Watchers...." he stopped, realizing how foolish the words sounded.

"I know – I know. Shh." She stopped the massaging and tucked his hand under the light weight blanket she had covered him with earlier, then patted his shoulder soothingly. "I want you to sleep now, Joe, give the serum the time it needs to do its magic."

His shoulder knotted beneath her hand, and he reached across to massage it. Then his chest. And his forehead. "Weird. Buzzing." He drew in an uncontrolled gulp of air. And another. "Buzzing. Everywhere."

Mary's eyes widened, and she half rose. "I will call Papá."

His hand captured hers in a tight, demanding grip. "Please. Stay. It's nothing," he lied, even as his vision greyed and his blood sang.

Though his grip slackened and slipped, and his eyes lost focus until even Mary's form was dim and colorless, she stayed.

****  
"Just how many Watchers have you dispatched over the years?" Methos asked evenly.

"How would I know?" Montoya answered with a shrug. "One grows old, one makes enemies. Drug runners, land speculators, politicians, businessmen."

Methos laughed. "Amber smugglers, spice pirates, politicians, businessmen. Live, grow stronger, make fewer enemies. And choose your friends wisely."

Methos watched new emotions flash and change on Montoya's face as he appeared to be considering himself from a world view outside of his own. Methos had been an expert linguist in body language since before the end of his first millennium. MacLeod and Montoya stood shoulder to shoulder, clearly comfortable within each others close reach.

He let his eyes linger a fraction of a second longer on Montoya, and was rewarded with a subtle shift in stance, first toward MacLeod, ('we will meet the threat together, brother'), then a rising chin, and squaring shoulders ('I show no fear!'). Methos allowed himself an ancient smile that wasn't a smile. Montoya tightened his grip on his shovel.

MacLeod instinctively stepped forward between them. "How is Joe doing?"

Methos stopped toying with Montoya, and glanced back at the hacienda. "It's hard to tell, with Joe. He lies better when he's hurting," Methos admitted.

His gaze traveled slowly back to Montoya. "How long have you been experimenting on people with your crawly friends' venom? I really hope you know what you are doing, for Joe's sake."

MacLeod winced, and turned to eye Montoya thoughtfully. "Experimenting?"

Montoya threw up his hands. "It is not what you think! I let one of the scorpions sting me, and Mary draws the blood for sera processing. There are fewer side effects than the traditional horse-derived antivenins."

"Which is why you were relatively unaffected when you were stung earlier," Methos observed thoughtfully. "You've become inured."

"Our ultimate goal is to create a purely synthetic version, and take the Immortal component out of the loop. That is many years away. We are just building on Grace Chantal's work in Brazil. But this serum is tested, and works better if the Immortal is older. In fact, we sometimes have to thin the doses contributed by the oldest Immortals like Grace."

"Or what?" Methos asked.

Montoya shrugged. "There are varying side effects, according to Grace. But we follow her guidelines."

MacLeod laid his hand on Montoya's shoulder. "Do you know how old Grace is?"

"Ancient. She is the oldest and wisest Immortal I know. Before making the acquaintance of your friend, of course. Amazing, is it not, a peaceful healer, surviving nearly so long as you?"

"And how old do you think I am?" Methos asked carefully.

"You are one of the oldest Immortals, or so El Gato claimed. MacLeod said fifty centuries! But surely that was a minor exaggeration," he added politely. "So I asked Mary to prepare the serum according to the same protocols I use with Dr. Chantal."

Methos was gone before he finished the sentence. MacLeod turned on Montoya, stepping close. "Mano – Grace is barely six hundred years old, and does not take Quickenings." He shook his head. He didn't think Grace had mislead Montoya on purpose – she simply didn't discuss her age with the young. "Methos is many times older."

"Oh! Ven conmigo! This I must see!"

*****  
Joe floated, trying to recapture the rhythm of the breathing cycles, but his nerves fired with tingling electric microbursts, spreading in tiny, annoying waves from his arm throughout his body.

Pain was an old friend to Joe. He knew it's flavors, tastes and moods. Sometimes fiery and passionate, like a lost night on the Montmartre, or sometimes cold and cruel, as cutting as a Chicago winter. The sparks of pain unleashed by Mary's last injection prickled like warming frostbite, and spread through his veins to parts of his body that only existed in his mind. He knew the pain was illusion. So were the lost parts. But still, the sparks flowed and ignited, an imaginary quickening fingering and firing and flaying imaginary nerves.

_"Hold him down, MacLeod! There. And there. Feel the chakras overloading? Bleed off the excess."_

Or not so imaginary? No. Strange. Exquisite. Utterly unreal. Delusional. He'd have to remember to tell Methos when he came out of this one. They could all use a good laugh. Chakras. Hah. As if that New Age bullshit would work on an old Chicago Irish boy.

 

  


*****

Methos watched the expressions flutter across his patient's face. Joe appeared to be experiencing a rowdy twilight sleep with occasional thrashing around that needed to be controlled so that he didn't end up tossing himself to the floor.

"He's laughing!" MacLeod said. The Highlander stood at Methos' elbow, and helped hold Joe down when necessary.

"Good. At least someone is having some fun around here," Methos complained. "Hang on. Here comes another one."

"Is this normal?" MacLeod asked as he helped restrain Joe. Methos shrugged and looked at Mary and Montoya, who were standing at the other side of the sick bed.

"No," Mary replied. "The reaction is not normally so powerful, or so long."

Montoya nodded. "But the blood of three Immortals has never been used in the solution before. Just two."

During the quiet spells, wedged amongst the rough, Methos and MacLeod answered Mary's questions about Joseph Dawson, occasionally revealing secrets they had not gotten around to telling each other.

When Joe finally woke, he lauched bolt upright, ignoring their restraining hands. "You should have seen it," he said in raw excitement. "Weirdest dream I've ever had. You and Methos kept pushing my buttons. Literally. Big, flashing clown buttons that ran right up the middle of my body. You'd push them, and these colored lights would flare up and scream out the top of my head. It was a real rush."

"That's what you get for taking the brown acid, man," Methos jeered, trying to settle Joe down for a more careful inspection.

Joe laughed, a fully robust laugh from the bottom of his lungs. "I wish. Someday I'm going to find that picture of you at Woodstock. And frame it in the bar."

"Over my many dead bodies..." Methos finally managed to pin Joe long enough to allow Mary perform the baseline medical checks on Joe from the other side of the bed. He listened carefully to the numbers she supplied. "Amazing..." he muttered.

"How do you feel, Joe?" MacLeod asked.

"Great. Best night's sleep I've had in years."

Methos and MacLeod exchanged uneasy glances.

"What?" Joe challenged.

"Nothing." Methos carefully kept his eyes from straying to the wall clock. He knew what it said. Only forty minutes had passed, from injection to seizure to waking. What Joe didn't know wouldn't get him killed. Hopefully. This time.

Methos examined Joe for signs of rash, fever, swelling or enlarged lymph nodes. "No serum shock," he muttered. Finally he looked across the bed at Mary, staring at her for so long that she finally averted her eyes. "Why Señora Alvarez Montoya, I do believe you are a healer."

She looked up at him and he could see the surprise on her face. "Sometimes." Her smile was enigmatic, which delighted him.

Montoya cleared his throat, then said, "It has been an arduous day. A day only good mezcal can adequately bring to a relaxing end."

"None for Joe," Methos said as Mary spoke out, "Not Joe!"

"I'm feeling discriminated against."

"Well you are!" Methos retorted. "And let that be a lesson to you."

"Just wait till next you belly up to my bar, Adam!"

Mary made waving away motions at the other men. "I will watch over Joe tonight. Please, Mano, when cook returns tell her that Señor Dawson is ready for some broth. I'm sure you three can entertain yourselves with tales of Immortal daring."

"As you wish, Mary." Montoya ushered MacLeod and Methos from the laboratory/sick room.

As he left, Methos exchanged a look of acknowledgement with Mary, a changing of the guard.

"Let me introduce you to the best mezcal on Earth," Montoya enthused as the three Immortals left.

*****  
Mary had brought him a fresh pillow.

Joe sunk back into the clean cotton, a bit stunned by this unlooked for kindness. The spicy burnt lemon scent of the balm she had rubbed into his skin lingered, making even the air tingle in his lungs as much as the skin between his fingers. "You saved my life," he said, staring at his hand, stretching and testing his range.

She touched a rough knuckle, measuring her small hand against his ungainly fingers. "Perhaps you saved mine. I had forgotten the difference between wanting to murder, and having to kill. Do you know that when I heard Horton's brother-in-law had come back to our home, I was quite determined to put a knife in your heart?"

"You needed to defend your family. You lost your husband."

"Your friends have told me that you lost your lover at the hands of an Immortal. Your family to be. But that you did not judge all Immortals for that loss."

Joe could not answer, so he just shook his head. Maybe he didn't judge all Immortals, but he sure as hell judged some. He and Mary understood each other all too well. He reached up, carefully, gently, and brushed away the tears that she didn't know she shed. They burned like embers.

*****  
Along the way, the corridor widened into a gallery, and MacLeod stopped in front of the portrait of a beautiful young woman dressed in a Spanish gown of the mid eighteen hundreds.

"Victoria!"

"Yes, My sister. Or so I always thought until my first death."

"It isn't always genetics that make a family," MacLeod replied earnestly, and briefly squeezed Montoya's arm. "Where's that world class agave juice you bragged on?"

"Come with me." He led them down the long gallery. Methos followed at a pace lagging, observing.

"And it is not just world class, but the best mezcal bacanora in the world," Montoya assured his Immortal guests. "The agave pacifica is harvested from a secret valley by jimadors who have worked the land for a hundred years, and still baked in the ancient stone ovens of our ancestors..."

"You mean you still make your own bootleg bacanora in the hills?" MacLeod needled.

"Isn't that what I said? Unpolluted by modern technology."

"Untaxed, as well."

"A gift from the land, to me, to you," Montoya grinned.

They retired to the coolest part of the hacienda, Montoya's sitting room, a spacious area with sliding doors that opened onto the central patio. The westering sun cast an amber glow on the adobe walls. The side rooms were a massive library and an office, while at the head of the suite was the master bedroom and armory, a combination not so unusual for an Immortal.

Each man claimed a full section of the key hole couch to sprawl in comfort after their arduous day. Montoya reposed on the central section. A small array of liquor bottles held honored positions on the low circular table before them.

"So, Methos," Montoya spoke slowly, tasting the magical flavor of the ancient's name. "Tell me about your life."

"What, Señor Montoya, exactly do you need to know about me? I'm sure I can come up with an appropriate lie."

A hint of a smile tweaked the corner of Monotoya's mouth. "Please. Call me Mano. For Duncan's sake we must be friends. I prefer truth. Whatever you want to share."

"Oh he never wants to share. The quantity of his truth corresponds with your willingness to believe his tales ‒ inversely. The less you appear to believe him the more of the truth he tells you."

Methos smiled at MacLeod. "You've actually been paying attention! I may have to reevaluate my response. Why don't you two tell me how you met ‒ give me some time to come up with an appropriate cautionary tale for this situation."

"Hmm." Montoya made a show of sorting through his bottles of mescal, finding the perfect one, and filling three pottery shot cups to the brim. Lifting his cup, he met each Immortal's eyes with a long, searching look before declaring his toast, "To old friends well met, and new friends well made."

Their cups joined with a clean, stony click. Even Methos blinked as the liquor curled over his tongue. "How long have you known each other?" he asked.

"Where was it that we met ‒ before Gila?" Montoya cast back.

"Some where in Arizona," MacLeod replied.

"No. It was nowhere. Nowhere, Arizona. We had the saloon to ourselves. The well water had gone bad, and there was only warm beer and warmer maguey." They went on to reminisce about fast horses and faster women, bad sheriffs and worse jails.

"Now that you mention it, water has it's merits," Methos hinted.

"Light weight!" MacLeod teased.

"Mac, I've died twice in the last two days. I need to hydrate if I'm going to keep up with you caballeros!"

"But of course." Montoya retrieved a bottle of water out of the built-in fridge retrofitted inside a revolution era antique cabinet.

"Thank you!" He accepted the water gratefully. "Gives me a fighting chance to keep up with you two."

"This reminds me, I should find out if cook has returned, and ask for a simple meal for my guests, and Joe's broth! Disculpen, será solo un momento." Montoya hurried out on his quest for food.

Suddenly alone for the first time in many weeks there were dozens of things MacLeod and Methos could have said to each other. Still, they sat for a long time, without speaking, just enjoying a companionable drink.

Finally MacLeod broke the silence. "Don't be afraid to drink with Montoya, he won't try for your head."

"Too bad. Haven't been laid in weeks."

"Methos!"

Methos smirked at MacLeod who glowered back at him. "What? He's so very pretty. I guess I could just watch you two."

"I may have to smack you around." MacLeod threatened.

"Promises, promises....I see the way he looks at you."

Now it was MacLeod who was smirking. "I never said I was a virgin."

Caught suddenly by laughter, Methos started choking on his water. Swiping across his face, he gasped out, "Oh ‒ Highlander ‒ you're ‒ they don't make 'em like you any more. Thank goodness."

"Hey!"

Just then they felt Montoya approach.

"I want you to behave!" demanded MacLeod.

"Me?" Innocently. "You're the tart!" Methos spoke loud enough to make sure Montoya heard as he entered the sitting room carrying a tray of simple fare.

He smiled broadly at them. "The laughter of guests! Music to my ears." He sat the platter of cold food on the table.

"Actually, he's not nearly as funny as he thinks he is," MacLeod opined.

"Ah, but Duncan, we must show respect to our elders."

"I wouldn't travel half way 'round the globe to check on him if I didn't respect him. Still, I'm capable of having respect for him and also wanting to occasionally kick his butt. In a totally respectful manner of course."

Methos rolled his eyes, but ended up chuckling. "Never appreciated!" Dramatic sigh.

Montoya raised his cup. "Let me propose a new toast. 'Let us end this violent day with peace'."

"Hear, hear," MacLeod agreed.

"To peace," Methos sipped while the younger Immortals threw their cups back with gusto.

"Speaking of cautionary tales," Methos started, "I should tell you a story from the Crusades."

"No! Not that one. A happy story!" MacLeod insisted.

"Oh, all right, let me think..."

"What's wrong with the Crusade story?" Montoya asked.

"Mac's right, it goes against a peaceful conclusion to the day. I'd just thought of it earlier when talking about the fates of unWatchful Watchers and those they chronicle. The Crusades were full of object lessons. Too many. Let me think of a tale to turn the mood, hmm..."

*****  
It was amazing how much better Joe felt. As if he could pick up his guitar and play music all day and all night. Play songs to this woman.

Mary smiled at him and Joe had to remember to _breathe._ He captured her tear with a calloused finger tip and brought it to his lips to taste.

She was so very lovely. It wasn't the first thing Joe had noticed about her. At La Rana's Cantina she appeared elegant, but angry. Then the first night at the hacienda, she had been distant, but kind, seeing to his needs as he played the blues into the night, making sure he had beer to drink and an occasional break by reminding Montoya, who was thoroughly absorbed with Joe's music, that the mortal man must occasionally stop.

Later he discovered how brilliant and dangerous she really was. But oh so lovely. Joe felt new. Joe felt young, out of time, willing to take risks. Even with a beautiful dangerous woman. A woman he could write a hundred songs for.

Mary smiled at him and Joe's entire world began to_tilt._ A brilliant smile revealing a passion transformed from hate to attaction to something more.

"Mary, I ‒ ."

"Shh, no need for words." She stroked his beard once then placed her hand over his heart.

"But there are a thousand things I need to tell you!"

"Oh? A thousand! And how long will this take? I'm not Immortal you know."

"I ‒ ."

"Or patient."

Joe laughed. "I guess you'd have to be a stubborn person to live with Montoya and not have him run rough shod over you."

"Stubborn? Really Joe, I'm quite a biddable woman ‒ as long as I have what I want."

Mary smiled at him and another laugh rumbled in Joe's chest again, but it was cut off by a sharp intake of breath when Mary scratched across his nipple through the thin sheet.

"Mary, I don't want ‒ ."

"You don't want!"

"No! I want! I meant ‒ " he sighed. "We ‒ ah ‒ Montoya ‒ ."

"Papá is busy. And he likes you. I like you."

Mary smiled at him, and Joe _knew._

It was hard to breathe, so he kissed her instead. She was soft and sweet, and responded to him, pressing against his chest. He could feel that the smooth silk of her blouse covered a more textured fabric. His hand traveled to the top of her breast. He waited to feel her smile before drifting his hand over her firm, full breast to the lace brassiere he had anticipated. She must have felt a surprised reaction from him when he encountered the front closure hook of the bra. A laugh bubbled from her throat, she arched and smiled. "New fangled ‒" he started to grumble.

"But wonderfully simple!" she finished. Leaning up she slowly unbuttoned her blouse revealing a white lace bra with a tiny, yet clever, interlocking clasp between her breasts.

"Oh! I get it. What will they think of next?" He un-puzzled the closure, releasing Mary's breasts from lacy constraint.

_Must breathe._

She placed his hand on her body, smooth and round and strong. He caressed a rosy nipple to a sharp peak.

She murmured in Spanish ‒ Joe didn't catch the words, but the meaning was the same in Sonora, Paris or Chicago.

Mary sat up, her bottom against his hip as she reached over the side of the bed to remove first her shoes then slacks, letting them fall unceremoniously to the floor.

Joe was already achingly hard when she slid under the thin blanket beside his naked truth. She placed a hand on his chest. "I need to warm my fingers before ‒"

"Actually, a little cool might be a good thing!"

Her laugh was low and near to the sexiest thing he had ever heard ‒ earthy and knowing and hungry as the crossroad blues.

When she touched him his moan made her tremble too. He only allowed a few strokes then captured her hand, not wanting this to be over too soon. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed her palm. With his other hand he explored the matching white lace panties. Two fingers smoothly traveled her rose, and she cried out when he gently plucked at her bud. Speeding, then slowing his touches she began to tremble. He curled down onto her to taste the turmoil he was creating. Somewhere along the way he had started singing her a love song, which he now hummed against her soft wetness, as he worshiped and brought her to a devastating orgasm. She cried out, then laughed, then cried, finally making him stop. "No more!"

Joe started to laugh again, but it mutated to a sigh of delight as Mary climbed onto his lap and captured his length inside herself. Now it was her turn to torment, riding too gently, driving him to plead for mercy. Such a saucy smile she had in dishabille! Finally she showed him some mercy and rode him home hard and free.

 

*****  
Methos was concluding a story about trading mules for unknown seeds and had his audience laughing and/or snorting with amusement and disbelief. They were also drunk, though Methos not so much, having consumed only one for every three shots that MacLeod and Montoya had. As he finished his tale he stretched out on his section of the huge couch and closed his eyes. "You children go on, play quietly." And promptly fell asleep.

"How he do that?" Montoya demanded to know.

"I think he has cat DNA." MacLeod's joke produced more laughter than it deserved; even the world's best mezcal does not raise the discretion level.

"You cherish him!"

"I do. Every chance ‒"

"He's snoring!"

"I'll fix that!" MacLeod wobbled to his feet like a fresh colt and stumbled over to Methos. He rolled him onto his side, and the snoring stopped.

"There."

Montoya found a thin blanket and tossed it to MacLeod, who picked it up from where it fell then spread it over Methos. "There ya go old sod."

"Come, let me show you my swords."

"No etchings?" MacLeod chortled loudly.

"Shh! Come on, Duncan."

The two inebriates walked with exaggerated precision into the master bedroom.

"Did you loot Toledo?" MacLeod exclaimed at the sight of the sword covered walls. "Now just exactly how do you explain this to a lover?"

"My padre was a collector, of course."

"Of course. He certainly was. Some of these might have been made by Ramirez himself." MacLeod's demeanor turned sad, and serious, as only the deeply drunk can manage. "I have a sword you might like to add to your collection. I kept Kronos' last blade. I offered it to Methos, but he refused to take it."

"Methos was there when you fought El Gato? Kronos?"

"Yes."

"You should keep it, Duncan. He may change his mind and want it someday. I have only bad memories of that sword. Your friend has a longer view...thinking about Methos' age makes me feel very young."

"You are!" MacLeod grabbed the younger Immortal and gave him a hug. It was not romantic, more of a bear hug between drunk friends, but then MacLeod kissed him, and with the clarity of mezcal, Montoya allowed it to continue until the memory of the man sleeping in the other room popped into his pickled thoughts. "Methos!"

"Shh. Let him sleep. I will have you to myself. Remember Gila?"

"As long as I live."

They kissed again. This time not so brotherly. Tongues demanding. Leaning into each other, swaying, but holding anchor together. Instinctively both knew that frottage best suited their present space, so clothing removal fumbled apace as rapidly as possible.

Strong body molding to strong body, their scents mingled, and they relived memories of another time, another bonding, a century ago. Touching each other boldly, they proved that they both more than survived; they seized life beyond the violence of the Game. Pushing out of mind the grimness of the day as they thrust against each other, each plunge centering, vitalizing, sobering.

After they cried out their last, fell still, and were holding each other up right, they heard from the doorway, "Beautiful."

Grasping each other for balance, they turned to see Methos leaning casually, a warm smile showing his appreciation. "The two of you are a work of art."

"Come share the bed," Montoya, bravely.

"Oh, no, thank you. You two get some sleep. I'll watch over you."

"Stay with us, please." MacLeod's voice was soft, his eyes trusting.

"Alright, till you fall asleep. Tuck you in." And he did, claiming only the edge of the bed, staying guard beside them. Not quite dozing, never so free with his trust. Too old for that.

*****

It was after midnight when an out-of-place noise roused Methos. Moving softly, smoothly, so as not to wake his companions, he slid from under the sheet and silently fetched his sword from under the bed. Standing to the side of the window, staying out of the moonlight, he searched the patio and hacienda wall beyond. The noise was repeated ‒ a splashing, a low murmur, a lower growl that resonated in the lizardy part of Methos' mind. He lowered his sword.

"A midnight swim?" Montoya's amused whisper floated from the bed.

"Joe's skinnydipping under the full moon. What is he, twelve?"

Montoya cocked his head, listening. "Eighteen. At least. A very mature eighteen. Do not worry, my Mary will watch over Joe like a falcon over its chick." His teeth gleamed in the dappled light as he laughed.

"Like a hawk over a chicken," Methos murmured under his breath.

"Come to bed, Methos," MacLeod summoned. "We need a mature influence here, too."

Methos sighed, and abandoned the window. "Better late than never."

*****  
Joe woke slowly in the first rays of the Sonoran sun, warm within and without. He took a deep, happy breath, and watched Mary's arm rise and fall where it lay on his chest. Her fingers possessively twirled a hank of silvering fur, making him laugh and catch her hand.

"Hello, darlin'," he rumbled.

"Hola, hombre," she responded with a lazy smile that made him even happier. "Are you hungry?"

"Starving," he growled, and rolled over to pull her close, and proved just how hungry he was.

 

After their second rising, Joe escorted Mary into the kitchen arm in arm, making a virtue of a necessity, since he'd somehow lost his cane during his first riding lesson the previous day. He made a grinning nuisance of himself as he stirred the beans and nabbed bits of chorizo from the frying pans. Unfortunately, after he made a face at the menudo, he had to retreat under the assault of the hacienda cook, who demanded in rapid-fire Spanish he be exiled to his proper place at the table with the rest of the troublesome men before she quit. Reluctantly, Joe folded his colors and let Mary guide him out to safe haven on the patio near the pool. He focussed fully on Mary and Mary alone until she disappeared within.

Therefore, when he turned his attention to the morning coffee, he was unprepared to see the Immortals grinning at him like Hugh Fitzcairn reincarnated. "What?" he challenged.

"You're looking better this morning," MacLeod observed carefully, only partially successful at toning down his smile.

"I'm fine," Joe allowed just as cautiously. "Good as new. Just needed a little sleep."

"Come on, show me," Methos said brusquely. As Joe reluctantly extended his arm, he prodded Joe's hand, checking the warmth and circulation. The only sign of injury that remained was a curious darkening and discoloration of Joe's tattoo, where the dart had penetrated. Joe flinched as Methos probed the circle, and pulled back.

"Watch it, bub."

"The injection site will probably be sensitive for a while. But otherwise, you look better than you deserve," Methos grudgingly decided.

"Mary has excellent medical skills," Montoya affirmed, not even bothering to hide his beaming approval.

"I'm sure she was gratified to bring such a challenging case to such a satisfactory climax," Methos chimed in, earning himself a murderous look from Joe, who had blushed to his chest hairs. There was no response he could make that wouldn't compromise his own firm sense of gallantry.

MacLeod took pity on him. "Hungry?"

"Like I haven't eaten in days," Joe admitted. And when Mary and the cook brought out the tortillas and rice and beans and huevos and many long links of chorizo, they all fell on the food like starving lions.

Joe slowed down before the Immortals, mindful that he no longer had the metabolism of a teenager, the evidence of the previous few hours notwithstanding. He folded his servilleta politely and pushed away the plate, avoiding MacLeod's inquisitive gaze, and Methos' more penetrating assessment. He searched the clear desert air for words as the silence stretched between them.

"I owe you an apology, MacLeod. To Señor Montoya, also. I've brought my troubles into your house."

"What about me?" Methos asked, deliberately spiking Joe's grave sincerity. "Trampled, remember? Knifed? Shot? Poisoned?"

"All of which you would have avoided if you'd gone to Val d'Isere with Mac like I asked," Joe pointed out with impeccable logic. "Mac fired me, not you," he added with a strangely indulgent smile.

"I swear, you spoil the Highland sonofa..."

"Temper, temper, Methos," Duncan cautioned.

"What? I'm not the one that blew up at Joe just because some jumped up juvenile delinquent made up a story about beheading me."

MacLeod dropped his eyes, and his smile. "I should be apologizing to you, Joe. I let my emotions cloud my judgment. I was angry, and you were standing there in the line of fire. I overreacted."

Joe glanced away, embarrassed. "Not your fault. I never saw the guy coming. That's my job, and I didn't come through for you."

"It is not your job to play doorman for the Highlander's challenges. Or mine!" Methos tried one last appeal to reason. "Joe, you can't afford another Tribunal. Three times and you are crowbait."

"Tribunal?" MacLeod tensed, his hand twitching closed around the arm of his chair. "You didn't tell me..."

"There was no Tribunal," Joe snapped, glaring at Methos. "It was a fitness hearing," he admitted with considerably more embarrassment. "Now leave Mac out of it, willya? Dealing with the bureaucracy is my own damn lookout."

Methos appealed to their host. "See, Montoya? MacLeod could drop Joe into the seventh circle of hell, and Joe would end up forgiving him and apologizing for the inconvenience."

"Ninth circle of hell. It's in the fine print in my contract," Joe shot back. "It's my job."

If looks were knives, both the Highlander and the Watcher would have been skewered by Methos' finely sharpened glower. "Just like it's your job to get yourself killed?"

Joe met and held his gaze, his own temper subsiding as fast as it flared. "Taking one for the team to keep the Immortal secret has always been part of the job description. You knew that from the start. Hell, you probably slipped it into the bylaws. Mac's finally figuring it out. It's the way it goes."

"Really, Methos. Don't growl at Joe. He wasn't trying to get himself killed. He just wanted to do it his way, on his own two feet as it were ‒ sorry Joe."

"No hay problema, Mac. I'm glad you understand. Unlike some people we know." Now firmly allied on philosophic principles, if not actual fact, Joe and MacLeod beamed at each other just to spite their elder.

Eventually, even Methos' glower ran out of kilowatts. "Kids! See, Mano? See what I put up with! Some how it always ends up my fault!" Methos put on a pretty fair mask of righteous discontent.

Manolito glanced between his guests, sensing the unresolved tensions as well as the unspoken affection. "It is very rare to meet a mortal who understands us so well," he observed softly. "Even rarer to find one who understands himself. It must be very lonely for you, amigo, to live in such shadows."

Joe colored, and looked away, toward Mary, watching them all from the kitchen. His blush deepened.

Methos nodded once, at Manolito's words, but didn't lose his frown. "Let that be a lesson to you, Joe. Gather ye rosebuds, and all that. Survival is much more fun than dying. Take that from the experts."

Mary's smile took on a primness as she brought another pot of coffee and some fruit and dulces to the table, and sat down between Joe and Montoya, stifling a laugh. "Silly men! To speak of shadows on such a fine and sunny day. Eat! Live!"

"Yes, Señora!" Joe replied. A welcoming smile spread across his face. "Sorry to bring our arguing to your table. It's been a rough couple days. Has it only been two? You know I been thinking here, I may need to make a little reconnaisance trip looking for my cane."

"Yes, eat! You have to keep up your strength for those midnight swims, bucko," Methos muttered in an undertone, earning himself a jab under the table from both Joe and MacLeod.

"Behave yourself in front of a lady, or I'll behead you myself," Joe hissed.

Montoya, who had found early in his career that selective deafness was a boon to a good host, chose to ignore the exchange, beyond a rather improper wink to his daughter-in-law. "Ah, canes! Joseph you are in luck. It would please me a great deal if you would accept a cane from my father's collection. As a young man he had a bad fall from a ill behaved horse, after which he sometimes required the use of a cane. Over the years my sister and I competed to gift him with many handsome specimens, for he was a proud man, and often insisted he only used them to appease us. And I know just the one!" Montoya jumped up in apparent delight, "Con permiso, uno momento!" He scrambled from the room, huge smile on his face, obviously amused with his idea.

"Oh, dear." Mary said, but then had to laugh. "I bet I know which one it will be!"

Joe smiled to please her, but with just a touch of strained sincerity. "I don't want to impose more on your hospitality than I already have," he said carefully, fully aware of the generosity of the gesture. "I can get by with any old stick..."

"Nonsense!" Montoya announced, as he strode back into the room, holding a masterfully carved ironwood cane, topped with a wrought silver head. "You must have this. It signifies to any in our ejido that you are under my protection. And it has extra features..." Montoya grinned and twisted the head. With a slithering hiss, a thin flashing blade slide from the cane sheathe. Montoya brandished it proudly. "With this very sword, my father fought a duel with the tax collector from Juárez!"

MacLeod burst out laughing. Methos reflexively ducked and swore.

Montoya resheathed the sword and presented it with a bow to Joe, who was now quite speechless.

"Just say 'thank you,' MacLeod suggested to his stunned friend.

"Thank you!"

Joe hefted the cane, which fit his large hand as if tailored. The cane was surprisingly heavy, but very well balanced. The forged silver head depicted a detailed body of a scorpion.

"The blade is true Toledo steel. The trigger to release the sword is hidden under the stinger," Montoya said helpfully, "Recessed to prevent accidents."

"Heaven forfend we have any accidents," Methos murmured testily. "I suppose I'm going to have to show you some parries, now. And ripostes. This is going to make horsemanship look easy."

Joe smiled faintly and rubbed his beard, not really taking him seriously. "Not quite so far to fall. Piece of cake."

MacLeod lost his grin as the implications sunk in. "Owning a weapon is one thing. Being trained in its use another, entirely."

Montoya nodded. "Feel free to use my practice salle. It is in the second barn disguised as the cattle breeding shed."

"Who do you practice with, Fernando the Bull?" Methos asked, as if truly interested.

"No, Zorro," Manolito shot back, instinctively matching Methos' sarcasm.

"Whoa, guys. Watcher here, not Zorro. I'm a lov... -er- peace loving fellow." Joe succeeded in making himself blush again when Mary knowingly nodded in agreement.

"Says the man who took out an armed, trained assassin with a palm frond."

Joe shrugged. "Once a Marine... "

"...always a jarhead," Methos spit out with feeling. "I'm sure that Hunter you met up on the hill would testify to that ‒ if he could."

"Don't worry, Señor Montoya. I'll treat your gift with respect. I'm not going to be denting it in a dojo."

"You know as well as the rest of us, Joe, that if you own a weapon, you must know how to use it," MacLeod warned.

"Your policy with me doesn't cover falling on your sword," Methos added blackly.

"Methos, you're hauling around some kind of attitude this morning," Joe warned.

"Well, seeing as how I'm the only one who didn't have an 'eventful' night, I can't imagine why!"

MacLeod whispered, "You had your chance. It's not like we threw you out of bed for eating crackers."

Mary tried to pretend deafness to that exchange, desperately suppressing laughter.

Joe looked at Montoya, then stared at MacLeod. Finally his eyes moved to Methos, who was carefully looking at no one in particular. "And you tell me to gather my rosebuds," he reproved, not bothering to suppress his grin at all.

"Still," Joe continued, unwilted by Methos' glare, "I think it's probably a bad idea for Watchers and Immortals to cross train. Too many misunderstandings could arise." Joe ran his hand over the silver head, and released the trigger with a 'snick'. The blade jumped free, held firmly in his right hand, the sheath held along his forearm, ready to block. This time, all three Immortals subtly flinched.

"Point taken, Joe," MacLeod said softly.

"How long have you watched Immortals fight, Joe?" Montoya asked curiously.

"Long enough to know my limitations," Joe answered back honestly. "My best chance comes with sheer surprise. My opponent will fall over laughing." He didn't mention his normal equalizer was a Glock. That would spoil the surprise. He resheathed the sword with a snap.

"Surprise and guile," Mary added, placing her hand over his. "You do not play by their rules, Joe. Ever. Do we understand each other?"

"Oh, Mary, you don't need to worry about that! They have their rules, and I have mine." He smiled at her, momentarily forgetting the presence of the Immortals.

Remembering, he turned to his host, "I thank you very much for this gift. I will cherish it always. Though I think I'll need my old one going through the airport!"

Mano laughed. "¡Si! We wouldn't want you arrested and disappeared by the airport 'security.' The Americans are so unreasonable, no? I will locate yours on the hill today while looking into my own security shortfalls. Perhaps the three of you would care to have a restful day at our private beach while I discover how my borders were so easily invaded."

"Just ask, if we can help." MacLeod promised for all of them.

Montoya nodded. "I respect your advice, my friend, though it is my responsibility."

Methos leaned back in his chair, contemplating the problem. "Your security cameras were exploited wirelessly. I can help you look into improvements later. But maybe we can go through your videos ourselves and use them to identify the third Hunter."

Joe frowned. "Most Watcher field teams work in groups of four. The Hunters kept that tradition. The fourth one is mine."

"Well, let me see," Methos muttered, "Justine as leader of the pack, Dog Food's rider with the palm frond over the hill, patio bleeder ...hmm...who else would belong to this nice little quartet? And more important, do you think they are even still on this continent by now?"

MacLeod made a growly noise in his throat. "I'm not counting four sets of hoofprints. Mano?"

"My men found just two more, besides your Dog Food. They didn't ride local ponies. No IDs. No phones. Only the tracks of the three, no more, between the hacienda and the oasis." His eyes burned with an old anger. "There were four who trapped my son. Horton, and three others."

"Perhaps the fourth doesn't feel the need to get close enough to gloat in person," Methos said. "The assassins may have been expected to use your own phone, Joe, to relay proof of mission accomplished. That way, there was no lead back from the team to the leader."

"The guy in the oasis was hired talent," Joe frowned as he worked out more implications than he was willing to voice in mixed company. "Not a Watcher. Maybe the hunters are running out of recruits in house."

"How do you know?" Montoya asked curiously.

"No tattoo. And no...measure of respect for the calling," he added thoughtfully. "Even the Hunters had a calling, warped as it was ‒ this guy was just a hired gun."

"So your efforts to clean up the Watchers are working," MacLeod offered.

Methos didn't say 'dream on,' but he thought it so hard that Joe sighed. "Even one is too many." He looked over at Methos. "Did you get photos of the guy you all killed out front? I can check personnel files, find out who mentored him."

"You mean the one your angel of mercy Mary killed?" Methos corrected, which did not earn him points with either Montoya or Joe, and made Mary bite her lip in dismay.

"Don't give me that," Joe said sharply, instinctively reaching out to her. "You would have done the same. And Mary's feeling bad enough as it is."

Methos looked only the smallest bit chagrined, and that was mostly for Joe's sake. "My way would have been slower, and messier, and brought us more answers. But as for pictures, well, I wiped my phone memory up on the hill after I sent a photo of Mano to Amy. After that, I forgot to watch and record. My Watcher skills are a little rusty, these days."

"Indeed." Mano observed. "Why do you play amongst the Watchers? This is a very dangerous game for an Immortal. Surely they would be most offended if they caught you?"

"Theoretically, they take a dim view. But practically? Using Joe as an example, their sense of fascination tends to outweigh their homicidal proclivities, at least among the true archivists. And so far, only Joe and the head of the Methos Chronicles are supposed to know. I - ah - take it that you have been enjoying my journals?"

"Oh, si! Very illuminating. I can't help but be fascinated by the workings of ancient minds! I suppose you will be wanting your journals back?" Mano teased.

"That would be nice." Methos sighed, knowing what was coming next.

"Perhaps you can tell me a few more stories from your past?"

Joe snickered like a teenager. "That's what you get for pulling the 'old and wise' routine. You know you love it."

"If you are the Watcher, Joe, do the chronicles truly belong to you?" Montoya asked. "I will return them immediately, if you wish."

Joe shook his head, a shadow passing over his features. "Methos writes his own, so they go back to him. And they took Mac's away from me. As a field agent, I just take notes for your chronicle, now. And I pass them on to the archivist. You don't have a Watcher."

"Then I name you my Watcher," El Alacrán stated, as if passing a law.

"Hey, wait..." MacLeod protested belatedly. "Joe's my Watcher, Mano. Or will be again once they realize Justine's gone AWOL." Mac said reasonably.

Joe traded a swift glance with Methos. Silently, they agreed not to point out the flaws in MacLeod's assumptions.

"But," MacLeod continued generously, "I could spare him for a couple weeks while he works on sneaking pictures of you."

Mano returned the smile then turned to look at Mary. "How do you feel about a house guest daughter?"

"Hmm...I might be able to put up with him for a time. Be sure that he is completely healed."

"I would be happy to contribute to your experiments," Joe managed to say with a straight face.

"Naturally, you all are welcome to stay as long as you wish," Mary concluded smoothly,

"I'm afraid Mac will need to take off rather soon," Methos explained, "To keep up appearances he needs to leave separately, as he came, before more Watchers who could tell tales show up. And I should be on my way in a day or two as well to check on a few loose ends. But I have a dandy tale about MacLeod and the Pyrenees sheep-shearing festival..."

"Be polite, buddy," Joe interrupted, knowing the ending to that one, while sending an apologetic glance to Mary.

"You wouldn't..." MacLeod warned. "Or I'll tell Joe the real story behind the yurt."

"I have many tales about el Señor MacLeod myself," boasted Montoya, grinning with anticipation.

"Hey, wait a minute!" MacLeod protested in his best thwarted clan chieftain voice.

"Behave, Papá," Mary reproved the Lion of Sonora, who bowed, wearing a little boy caught in the sugar bowl smile.

Joe grinned, thinking it would be vast entertainment indeed to eavesdrop on the Scorpion and the Horseman. To a respectable point, that is. Not that respectability ever stopped him in the past.

Then a thought occurred to him. He turned to Methos and asked, "You said you sent a photo to Amy? Of what? What did she say?"

"Say? Oh, shit! Lo siento, Mary. It was just a picture of Manolito Montoya, at the gates. I wanted her to know, well, just in case I didn't make it back, I wanted her to know her Dad had succeeded. I better call her and tell her everything is all right. Or my name will be Dog Food too."

"Great. Just when I thought I had her convinced I really was on vacation," Joe grumbled, but there was a note of genuine worry underlying his complaint.

Montoya looked thoughtful. "So you thought I might win a challenge with you?"

Methos grinned devilishly. "No, but I doubted your men would let me live! I'm a rather dirty fighter if you must know. If the young must fight, well...anyway too much philosophizing at breakfast."

"Indeed." Montoya concurred, not looking young in the least. Or surprised. "But I will have you know that my men have orders not to interfere in challenges. I would not have them risk their lives over my dead body. That would be a pointless and evil waste."

"You would be wise to keep that fact to yourself. They enhance your reputation as a dangerous man to challenge," Methos pointed out, before returning to the problem at hand. "My cell phone is rather dead. Would you mind if I made a call to Amy before she sends out the marines?"

Mary frowned at them all, displeased with the turn in the conversation. Joe frowned, too, though for different reasons.

"You mentioned Amy before. Your daughter?" Mary asked, clearly curious.

"My daughter," Joe said uneasily, "though our relationship was...unacknowledged, and for her safety, I'd like to keep it secret beyond this room. He traced a pattern on the tablecloth. "She thinks I'm on vacation. Maybe the picture won't mean anything. It was just a long shot of the ranch, right?" Joe asked. "Methos, tell me you didn't take a picture of Señor Montoya and..."

"...You. Yes. A nice closeup, really." Methos thought about it. "I guess, in retrospect, that might excite her a little bit. Since you forgot to tell her the part of the vacation plan where you caroused with restricted Immortals. Though I missed the really good part where you cold-cocked El Alacrán."

Joe drummed his fingers on the new cane, feeling decidedly murderous. "That was your fault."

"You were being held hostage, Joe."

"I was not going to stand around being bait while you channelled MacLeod!" Joe shot back. MacLeod stared at them both as if they'd grown antennae, while Montoya rubbed his jaw and seemed pleased at the memory.

"And what of her mother? Will she not be worried?" Mary asked with deceptive calm, pointedly derailing the escalating argument.

Methos took a deep breath and pointed toward the hacienda, looking at Montoya for direction. "I better go make that call!"

"Indeed! I know how daughters worry. This way, please." Montoya led Methos out of the room.

This left Joe and Mary to face each other, while MacLeod seemed to be forgotten. "One child? Or children? Is there a wife?"

"No, Mary." Joe shrugged, with a deprecating smile. "No one has been foolish enough to marry me." He let the words sink in, letting Mary have time to judge them.

"Amy is a Watcher, like you?"

"Most Watchers are born into the organization. Her mother came from a long line," he admitted. "We met when I was first being trained."

"I see. Hmm. So what is she like? Stubborn and adventurous like her father?"

"Me? Stubborn?" Joe protested weakly. "She is very beautiful, most unlike her father, fortunately," he said. "Her mother married another," he added simply, not willing to go into the painful details.

"Then she was a foolish woman," Mary snapped.

"Foolish, indeed," MacLeod said softly, reminding them of his presence. The look he gave Mary held both warning and promise.

Joe waved him off. "Old news, MacLeod." He shot MacLeod a stern look. The last thing he wanted was the Highlander expounding on his highly checkered love life. Not that the Highlander knew even the half of it.

At that moment Methos and Montoya returned, apparently in good spirits. "Well, Joe you will be glad to know that you are back in Amy's good graces, just for being alive! Fancy that. Me on the other hand, well, I'm still ‒ never mind. You had better call her later. I promised to be back where I belong under her wing day after tomorrow. I might make it in a week. In the mean time, our gracious host here insists that we should spend Duncan's last few hours in Mexico on his beach."

"Yes, I think you could all use the rest and enjoyment of the sea while I take care of a few details needing my attention," Mano said.

MacLeod started to protest, "Mano, are you sure you don't want me to..."

"...Not at all, MacLeod," Montoya smoothly interjected. "You must enjoy my hospitality, for that would please me most of all. There should be a splendid sunset this evening. Do not waste the opportunity to celebrate a peaceful friendship regained."

Methos peered at their host. It was rare that the modern Immortals so completely understood the hospitality of the ancient tents and fires of his youth, as well as the difficulties in maintaining Immortal friends and allies over decades and centuries. He would bear Watching, indeed.

"We will go to the beach, Joe. These ones can argue where they will," Mary announced with a certainty that knew only the immediate needs of the moment.

Joe clearly agreed, Methos noted, and so their mortal wisdom carried the day.

"Hey, we wanta go too!" Methos protested, suddenly shaving about 4,988 years off his age. "I get the hammock. You bring the cervezas, MacLeod. Don't forget the ice! And chips. And dip. Better bring towels, too, we'll go swimming."

"I didn't bring trunks," MacLeod said mournfully, mindful of mixed company.

Mary just laughed, and poked Joe, whispering and smiling at MacLeod's expense. "What's the matter, afraid of the competition?"

Joe and Montoya chose to go selectively deaf.

Methos' gaze raked MacLeod's Levis with a look that could have scorched them to the fork of his superbly conditioned thighs. "Luckily, you won't shrink if exposed to water. I hope that you haven't resurrected more unnaturally Puritan thoughts from your youth in my absence."

"I'll give you unnatural, and show you the pride of Loch Shiel...and more besides," MacLeod promised, dragging Methos away from the table and into the hacienda to provision the party. "I'll get the food, you get the beer. And ice. Mano, do you have any Tabasco? No, don't ask why..."

 


	4. Tip of the Sword

Methos lay sprawled on the playa, using his shirt for a pillow. The top button of his cutoff jeans had somehow come undone. Luckily, someone else had remembered a tube of tanning lotion, which when applied would gave his skin a cocoa butter sheen. The Pacífico nestled in the sand at his elbow was speckled with condensation drops. He raised the bottle to his lips and licked one off.

MacLeod failed to suppress a lecherous grin and one shaking hand reached out seemingly of its own volition ‒ and snatched the beer away. Tipping back his head, he made sure Methos could see his throat work as he finished off the bottle. "Ahh! Thank you. Need some help with the lotion?"

Methos' eyes narrowed, only a nuclear spark of outrage escaping. The ancient desert-dweller in his soul brooked no theft of the water of life, the nectar of Ninkasi. Then his eyes widened innocently, the fires of revenge carefully banked. "No, please, don't bestir yourself. I will manage."

Slowly filling his right hand with the silky liquid, Methos dabbled his fingers in the glistening pool and drew them languidly over the corded muscles of his belly, the trailing fluid gleaming in the sun. With infinite patience he painted his torso with the secret hieroglyphs dreamed by shamans thousands of years before the Celts found Scotland. Glyphs of power, glyphs of sex, charged by the powerful rays of Ra.

MacLeod's breathing became deep, yet still not sufficient to control his heart racing, as he watched the long narrow fingers dance magical patterns across his belly. The man was fey ‒ ancient, yet child-like in his enjoyment of the elemental pleasures...

"Methos."

"MacLeod."

"It's been a hard couple of days. Maybe we should get out of the sun." MacLeod nodded toward the small palapa thirty yards upland behind them. With it's driftwood frame and palm frond roof, the beach house offered rough shelter and a modicum of privacy. "Rest a bit."

"Rest?" Methos arched an eyebrow in mock concern. "Are you feeling fatigued, Highlander? I thought you looked a little peaked. If sunshine and sea breezes are not strong enough medicine, perhaps you are overdue for some rest on Holy Ground. I know just the place ‒ vows of silence, vows of abstinence, water and crusts, cots and tick mattresses. And did I mention...vows of chastity?" He blinked innocently as his fingers ruffled the lightly furred trail below his navel.

Artlessly, he arched on his beach towel and dug his hips deeper into the shifting sands, drawing the sole of his foot slowly up the blanket to reveal the suggestively firm contours under the snug buttons of his Levi cutoffs. Absently, he started toying with a loose thread dangling from the inside seam of his jeans, tugging the seam higher, his inner thigh flexing under the beating rays of the sun. "How long have you remained chaste, MacLeod? How long...can you?" Methos asked with the barest hint of challenge.

"I'll give you chaste, Old Man! When hell freezes over!" He reached out and grabbed the artful hand as he leaped up, dragging Methos upward with him, slamming their bodies together.

Whispering in Methos' ear, "You coming peacefully, or you want that I should drag you?"

"You're such a sweet talker, Mac!"

"I try!" Methos' wide grin indicated his cheerful compliance with the pushy Scot ‒ or at least his willingness to be muscled about. MacLeod ran his hand up and down Methos' back and flank.

Suddenly, Methos pushed loose, pretending to ignore MacLeod. Brushing away sand, he waved to Joe and Mary where they lounged further south down Montoya's beach. The other couple were talking, their chairs side by side in front of their own private palapa. They waved back, and started laughing when MacLeod made good on his threat.

"We'll be back later!" MacLeod shouted out assurance to them, while attempting to drag Methos up the beach.

Methos broke loose again and started running ahead. "First to the hut gets to choose!"

There was no doubt in Mac's mind what the choosing involved. He grabbed the bottle of lotion and dashed after the ancient marathon runner. Joe and Mary, preferring to explore their own fond secrets, discreetly ceased watching.

Methos had stamina and a head start, while MacLeod had the spur of blind lust. However, Methos might have told him that lust was a handicap in the Olympic sprints. That is, if he could have stopped laughing after he beat Mac to the palapa.

"Beat you by three lengths!"

"What? It was a neck, at best!"

"I didn't say lengths of what..." Methos grinned, crowding the Highlander against the pole holding up the palm frond roof and reaching down traced the right length with his fingers. "From here...to here..." he instructed, repeating the tracing twice to reinforce the lesson. "Three lengths."

"Two," MacLeod said proudly.

Methos' eyes opened wider. "Oh, dear! Now that I'm measuring, the parameters are changing! Maybe only two lengths...must be the Schrodinger's cat effect."

"Methos, I'm not a cat in a box."

"No. But the act of observation seems to have affected the results of my experiment."

MacLeod grabbed Methos' exploring hand, pulling it away from his person, then leveraged a reversal, trapping Methos against the pole support, which wobbled a bit from impact. "Well, Doctor Adams, there lies your experimental flaw! Observations are done with the eyes, not the hands." He leaned into the good doctor and claimed his mouth in a rough lingering kiss. "Yes!" He exclaimed when he finally came up for air. Moving with alacrity, he hustled Methos inside the beach shelter.

They wrapped arms around each other, danced in a small circle to a wood-slat cot, landed on it with a thump causing the over-taxed wood to creak. "Yikes." They rolled off the over-burdened cot and onto the Yaqui pattern rug covering the sand floor.

After a slow reconnecting kiss, they propped-up with elbows on the rug, facing each other, smiling, indulging in the lowly teasing cues that would lead to higher nonverbal communication.

"You're a sexy bastard, MacLeod."

"So are you, Methos, so are you."

"Nope. Just a guy here."

"Oh yeah? Just a guy who has fucked more people than anyone else on Earth."

"I've not necessarily fucked more people than anyone else. You're just assuming that 'cause I'm supposedly the oldest. It could be some superwhore who serviced legions that holds the fucking record."

"Hm. Do superwhores wear capes?"

"Bifft! Of course not, Mac. They wear suits and ties, mostly."

"You're right, so they do. You're very wise, Methos." MacLeod's grin verged on a smirk, but affection sparkled in his eyes as he reached out to touch his friend's face, brushing away a bit of sand from Methos' cheek.

Methos grabbed MacLeod by the shoulder. "Of course I am. Now come here, you." He pulled MacLeod toward his side of the rug, and demonstrated his experience by kissing the Highlander slowly, thoroughly, with a passion slightly tempered by patience, waiting for their heat to rise to a slow ravishing boil.

He broke the kiss and rested his head in the juncture of MacLeod's neck and shoulder, with his mouth over a pulse point, breathing heavy, his heart matching the hammering artery beneath his lips. The mild salt air accentuated the taste of MacLeod's skin. Methos sighed. "I could stay like this forever."

MacLeod, having somewhat less patience, rustled around to locate the plastic bottle of sunscreen he had thoughtfully snagged before racing Methos to the palapa. "Here!" He shoved the bottle into Methos' hand.

Methos didn't have to say, "boyscout," it could be read on his face. He shook his head and gave the bottle back to MacLeod. "No, I'm feeling lazy. You do me." Rapidly he stripped off his cutoffs and stretched out on his stomach, wallowing himself a comfortable divot in the rug. Sighing loudly, he gave MacLeod an expectant look. "Well hurry up, Mac, I'm not getting any younger."

MacLeod gave a single huff, but adapted quickly to the change in his plan, and scooted over to the ancient's finely rounded backside. He poured the silky lotion into his hand first, warming it, then worked it soothingly onto both cheeks. Before applying it elsewhere, he leaned down to Methos' ear and nipped the lobe.

"Ow!" Methos sucked in and held a breath, "Oh!," when he felt the thick finger already inside him. "Sneaky bastard!"

MacLeod's laugh rumbled, while he struggled to keep tormenting Methos with one hand, and removing his own cutoffs with the other. Finally, to Methos' great displeasure, he withdrew to wrangle off the clothing.

"Mac!"

But MacLeod quickly returned and wedged himself between muscular thighs, and encouraged Methos onto his knees. There was a moment of quiet when MacLeod's hard length rested between slippery cheeks.

Methos stilled, then sighed. "Please, Duncan."

"Your wish...."

Achingly slow, MacLeod moved within his lover, willing it to be as painless as possible. Methos had had enough pain this week. He muttered some endearments neither would later remember, but always knew, then increased his thrusting as Methos began to tremble. He grasped his partner's needy cock and played it at the increasing rhythm they moved at toward climax. "Ahh!" in unison. They held on together through trembling pleasure and satiation.

"Oh, gods! Oh my...Duncan."

*****  
A half an hour later MacLeod nudged him awake. "Come on, Methos, you have to take me to the airport."

"Damn."

"You're the one that insisted we leave separately."

"Yes, I remember, I'll ‒ I won't be far behind. I'll make sure Joe's OK, then join you in Paris."

"I'll be there. And I don't think you need to worry about Joe. He's in capable hands." MacLeod sealed his promise with another kiss. Then he looked woeful.

"Damn. I forgot the Tabasco."

*****  
Methos was all business as he and MacLeod drained a stirrup cup at the Mickey Mouse Bar across the cobblestone road from the one-runway aeropuerto. "Now, remember to go over the Haute Route, drop into Val d'Isere as if you never left. Pretend to have been communing with the mountains, all that rot."

"I like communing with the mountains," MacLeod admitted. "But that just puts me back at square one."

"Yes, batting your eyes at the ski instructors and showing off your wedeln. And a very pretty swinging wedel it is, too," Methos complimented, patting MacLeod scurrilously high on his Levi-clad thigh. "But you'll need to make a big splash to get back on the Watcher radar. The worse you make them look for losing you, and the more inexplicable your behaviour, the greater the chances they will recall Joe, if only to have him around to beard the lion."

"And if I can't rouse the Watchers in the Alps?"

"Meet me in Paris in a week, either way. I'll think of something."

"We'll think of something. You could dress up as Robin Hood and we could spar on the roof of Le Blues Bar."

"Wouldn't that make you Guy of Gisbourne?" Methos asked doubtfully, while recalling that hose made him itch in inconvenient places.

"Moi? Play that cad? Heaven forfend. Not when I've got the perfect gown to play Maid Marion. You did say to make a big splash."

Methos nodded judiciously, suppressing a smirk. "That would do it." Across the cobblestone parking lot, a small propjet landed with a dusty whine. "Your ride's here, o mistress fair."

"That's it, help me get in character," MacLeod grinned. "I can't wait to see you in a codpiece."

"_Wait_ is the key word. Good thing you're immortal. Of course, pigs may fly and unicorns walk the earth again sooner than we imagine." Methos shook his head. "You do realize Robin Hood didn't _really_ dress like Errol Flynn, don't you?"

"I'll settle for the pencil-thin mustache," MacLeod laughed, then sighed. It was time to leave. He shouldered his duffel; smiled and waved to the Federales, as Methos and he entered the one and only concourse, which was about the same size as Manolito Montoya's barn. "How long do you think it will take for Joe to be recalled? A week? Two?"

"A month, if Joe's newfound good luck holds," Methos hesitated. "The Watchers are an ancient guild, at heart, MacLeod. They decide things slowly, change their minds glacially, and Joe has been a thorn in their side for years. Don't expect them to welcome him back with arms held wide any time soon."

MacLeod loaded his travel bag on the security conveyor, and turned to clasp Methos' arm with a kinsman's grip. "I could stay. Just one more night," he amended wistfully. "I never really apologized properly to Joe."

Methos cast his eyes heavenward and smacked MacLeod's shoulder, with rather more firmness than mere friendliness required. "One of these days, you'll figure out he doesn't need your apologies."

"What, then?" MacLeod asked.

"How about a little new-fangled forgiving? I hear it's all the rage, this millennium."

"Forgive him for what?" MacLeod held on as Methos started to pull away. Methos easily twisted his inner wrist upward in MacLeod's grip, and traced a circle on the vulnerable skin below the palm, first on his own arm, then on MacLeod's. Though his touch was feather-light, MacLeod still flinched.

"Forgive him for being a Watcher," Methos barely breathed the words. Then he smiled brightly, and effortlessly slipped away from MacLeod's grasp. "He's just a guy."

MacLeod blinked. "Just like you."

"Got it in one."

"Where will you go from here? I know this place in the French Alps, powder skiing, bump skiing, apres skiing... ."

"Brazil, thankyouverymuch. I paid my dues to Skadi, the ski goddess, and you can keep your frostbite and avalanches to yourself. I will go to Brazil, and I will find Grace Chandel, and I will very politely ask her to cease and desist experiments that are likely to get us all locked up in a secret research lab."

"Be polite, and send her my love," MacLeod said sternly. "I'm sure Grace is taking proper precautions."

"Maybe. But clearly her students are branching out. I need to know if Joe's cure was just a fluke, or if she really has mastered the problem of transferring live healing cells from us to mortals. The Watchers cannot find out. Ever. Or someday, Galati's War and the Sanctuary Massacre will look like spitball fights next to the Pharmaceutical Crusades."

"Aye. No more Crusades." MacLeod quickly hugged Methos, before turning away to enter the boarding area. He looked back once over his shoulder and smiled his good bye. Methos watched till MacLeod was out of sight.

****

Joe finished his last lift on the weight machine in the salle, after sneaking in an extra set for luck. He sat up and settled a towel around his neck, stretching. "Don't think I don't see you hovering over there," he remarked to Methos' silhouette in the doorway.

"How do you feel?" Methos asked, anything but innocuously.

"Good. Fine. Even better than the last time you asked, what was it, forty-five minutes ago?" Joe answered amiably.

"How'd the wrist hold up?"

"I'm working on it." Busted, but unwilling to admit it, Joe's smile dimmed just a watt or two. "It'll catch up. You need a new hobby."

"Maybe I'll go in for a new degree. How's psychology sound?"

"Possibly terrifying. Depends on if you plan to practice on anyone I know."

"Ah, but you've always been one of my best patients, Joe."

"That's what I was afraid of." Joe stepped out of the cool, dark salle into the Sonoran sun. Brown stood patiently nearby, his halter lead looped loosely over a hitching post. "Hey, buddy," Joe called out. Big Brown nickered, and ambled over to whuffle at Joe's pockets, dragging his lead in the dirt.

"You've been feeding him carrots on the sly again, haven't you?" Methos accused. "His next owner will have to teach him how to ground-tie all over again."

"He likes carrots. And watermelon. You should see him tear into a sandia. I'll miss him." Joe ran his hand down the long, curved neck and thumped the withers companionably. "But isn't the meter running on this taxi? I thought you were going to take him back this morning. What's the fare for a Cadillac ride like this?" Joe asked with a touch of regret. "I hope you tipped him some extra corn for me."

"You can tip him yourself." Methos revealed his best troublemaking grin. "Here." He handed Joe a creased and slightly tattered piece of notepaper with a ramble of handwritten Spanish.

Joe peered at the paper, while fending off Brown's attempt to eat it. "...Vende...caballo...2000 pesos? You bought Brown for 200 bucks?"

"Me? No. What would I do with a horse?" Methos beamed innocently. "Nope. You did." Slowly Methos ran the halter lead through his hands and coiled the rope. "I still owed you the vig on the bet, remember?"

"The vig...?" And then it dawned. "You mean the horse races? Damn, you never did get to the bank to ante up, did you?"

"Until now." Methos handed over the halter lead and stuffed the bill of sale into Joe's shirt pocket. "Here's the keys to the Caddy, and here's the pink slip. Drive carefully, Hoss, and fasten your seat belt!"

*****  
Methos caught a flight to Manuas the late afternoon of that same day. Watching from his window seat, he gazed down at the fascinating view of the Amazon basin drainage, tracing the dendriform pattern of rivers laid out below. Altitude low enough now that he could see the mixing of the waters, the green with the dark brown. Turbulence picked up as they descended. The landing at Eduara Gomes airport was jolting and abrupt, as if the plane's wheels were square, not round. Still, as pilots say, since they walked away from it, it was a good landing, and the passengers awarded the crew with heartfelt applause.

An ecotourist hotel near the river sufficed for the night. Cocooning with his Gibson paperback, he avoided the boisterous night life available in the Amazon rainforest's only large city. In the morning he rented a shallow draft riverboat. Following both the map Duncan had drawn for him, and the one he printed from the net, he motored four hours west, then an hour and a half north to the plantation once owned by the Immortal Carlos Sendaro.

As he pulled his boat next to the dock and tied it off, he saw Grace come out from her small medical clinic and descend the wooden riverbank steps leading to the dock. The buzz of her quickening felt gentle, she'd never taken a head as far as he knew. He returned a wave from the petite beauty.

"Ben! When Duncan called to say an Immortal would be visiting me, I had no idea it would be you! You go by Adam now? As a first name?"

With her words as cue, Methos slipped into the old persona of the good Dr. Benjamin Adams. "Hello, Grace." He gave her a tight squeeze. "You can call me whatever you like!" He grabbed his carryall and walked beside her back up the dock.

"So what is this important medical thing we need to talk about? What have you discovered, Doctor?"

"Oh it's not my discovery, my dear, but yours!"

"Mine?"

He placed her hand on his arm as they ascended the steps up the river bank to her modest home. It was even smaller than the clinic.

"I imagined Sendaro having built a great mansion here on his plantation."

Grace laughed. "Yes he did. I burned it down."

"You did!"

"It was an accident, really."

"This is a story I've got to hear."

"It was decades ago, when I left him in a bit of a hurry. I guess I must have knocked over a lamp in my haste. It's true, it was an accident, don't snicker."

"I do believe you, I just have a perverse sense of humour. You are the gentlest person I know. I can't imagine you deliberately hurting anyone."

"I do try to be helpful, not destructive. Since I returned here ‒ after Duncan...took his quickening ‒ I've lived quietly. It's no longer a plantation. The locals raise there own produce and visit me only when not satisfied with their own healers. Mostly I do research."

"On venoms."

"Yes, you've heard?"

They arrived at the front door and she welcomed him inside her home. "Come in, we will share our stories and catch each other up." She briefly showed him around the bungalow, then put on a kettle of water to heat on a wood burning stove. "I only use the generator in the clinic. It's so loud. I need to get a modern solar system. Time is passing me by again."

Methos smiled. "Tell me about it! Staying modern is a continuing endeavor for us."

They sat together in the breakfast nook of Grace's bungalow, facing a window with a view looking down the hill to the Amazon River meandering along its course to the sea. She poured him a very nice cup of the local black tea from an old Brown Betty.

After a companionable silence, Methos asked, "What is it that you want to achieve with your research?"

"To extend and preserve life, of course."

"What if you were so successful that mortals stopped aging? Would they dare have more children? Could they even?"

"What are we talking about, Ben?"

"Your research."

"Mine?"

"I was recently in the hacienda of Manolito Montoya. They treated a man suffering from a scorpion sting with immortal derived anti-venom."

"A dangerous dose?"

"Quite fatal."

"The patient survived?"

"He practically did somersaults within the hour."

"You exaggerate, Benjamin. My serums have been effective, but not magical."

"You never used the blood of a five thousand year old Immortal."

Grace was still beautiful, even with her mouth hanging open.

******  
A week later, Methos reunited with MacLeod in Paris. They sat at a sidewalk cafe, sipping coffee and people watching, braving the brisk wintry wind because it made eavesdropping impossible.

"I wonder when Joe will turn up?" Methos mused.

"I'm thinking not soon, if he's got an ounce of sense left."

"Sense has nothing to do with it. When I saw him last, most of his brains had sunk down into his..."

"Methos! We're talking about Joe, here."

"So, what's your point? He's a Watcher, not a monk."

"True. I doubt there's a monastery that could hold him," MacLeod grinned. "So how did it go with Grace?"

"Hmm, she thinks I'm nuts. She's never seen a reaction like Joe's, where the healing was so bloody fast that you'd have thought him an Immortal."

"So do you think it was because you're so much older than the other Immortals whose blood she has worked with?"

Methos looked very thoughtful, shaking his head. "Don't know if it was the vintage or the process. And remember, the side-effects nearly killed him anyway. At least I've talked her into stopping the research. She thought I was narrow minded at first. I had to tell her a few of my old horror stories about being tortured by researchers experimenting on me. Always so sure they would find the _cure_ for aging. I wonder if there are still parts of me sitting in coptic jars back in Egypt. We can expect a visit from her in the near future."

"Did you tell her who you are?"

Methos sighed. "Yes." He sighed again. "With Mano knowing she was bound to find out anyway. Too many know, Mac. Too many. But I also had to be sure that she took me seriously. She's still all excited about the possibility that Immortal blood holds the clues to telomere end-replication. That woman may very well learn the secret of halting aging in mortals. And the Watchers think _you_ are the most dangerous Immortal! If they only knew."

"Thank God they don't!"

"As far as we know," Methos added realistically. "I think Joe suspects, if only because he avoids the subject like the plague. But Grace has more followers than just Mano and Mary. The secret is not safe."

"It sounds like I'll need to do some reading before she visits so I can follow what you two are shouting about."

"Never fear, Mac. No shouting, Doc Adams is polite to a fault, and of course Grace is the soul of gentility, it goes without saying, but you're not the only one who will be doing some extra homework. We can quiz each other."

"Oh, joy."

********  
Joe hunched over the screen of his computer, tapping out his daily report.

'El Alacrán increased his guard and replaced his security system. I had to move back from perimeter work to avoid detection, but the private concerts continue, giving me unusual opportunities for access. I was worried he might have somehow caught wind of the Watch, but it turns out he was just preparing for the holidays. Today buses began arriving from as far away as Hermosillo to discharge entire extended families, most of whom have relatives working for the rancho. There are aunties and abuelas, tíos and grandpapas, and many children. The hacienda and grounds have been transformed from a lonely, echoing estate to a small village. A well-armed, well-guarded village.'

After considering, Joe erased the phrase ending in '...and many children.'

"Why erase that?" Montoya asked curiously, reading the report over his shoulder. "I'm proud of all mis hijos e hijas. Ellos son mi familia."

"Jeez, give a guy a heart attack," Joe complained. "Where'd you learn to sneak up like that? The Apache? The Yoeme?"

"The convent schools. You have no idea how hard it is to sneak in to pray for forgiveness with a pretty  
señorita," Manolito grinned.

Joe shared his smile. He definitely had some idea. But then it was back to business. "I don't want to emphasize the kids. Might give someone ideas. I'd better not mention your support of the orphanages anywhere. Not till I find out how far up this goes."

"Then you are still convinced there are more," Montoya still smiled, but the glint in his eye held no amusement. "And you have a very poor opinion of their morals."

"None of the three we've seen had the pull to get me reassigned. And a nest of pit vipers has higher morals than that crew. There's at least one more I have to take into account. When I know the collateral threat is over, I'll retire happy." Joe sat back, contemplating his own words. The idea of retirement had become a marshlight in recent years, elusive and out of reach. "Broke, but happy," he amended with a careless grin.

"If you stayed here at the hacienda full time, and stopped sending reports, you would force them to come to us," Montoya offered. "I have many ways to dispose of the bodies," he added with practical generosity.

"Don't tempt me," Joe said. Montoya clearly was not joking.

"It is not strictly on my behalf that I make the offer," Montoya answered with equal honesty. "Or on yours. I do not want my family put in harm's way. But Mary...you have returned her heart to her, and that alone makes you one of us, I believe. Some of the children already call you 'Tío José.' And the abuelas will be plotting with the priest any day now, to reserve the church and make an honest man of you."

Despite his new tan, Joe colored deeply, and waved at the perfectly true lies on the computer screen. "It would take a damn miracle to bring me back to the straight and narrow. But I didn't think Mary...that is...do you..."

Montoya waved imperiously. "Mary let me know in no uncertain terms that she was a modern woman who did not need either my blessing or the Church's to conduct her own affaire." He grinned mischievously. "Besides, it does not matter. Mary may be a modern woman now, but she was raised in the ejido, and the day after you met you shared a hearth, a roof and a bed. The marriage is a simple fact, in the eyes of many of her people. I strongly suggest you mark the anniversary down in your google calendar."

*****  
Working on his second cup of coffee, Methos inquired of MacLeod, "Well, did you manage to catch the Watchers' attention while you were skiing?"

"That's the strangest thing. It was as if no one was watching me at all. I almost felt insulted."

"Poor fellow. Don't take it personally. It probably just means that Justine didn't have anyone she could trust to watch you for her while she took her little side trip to Mexico. That may be a good sign that we're dealing with a smaller cohort."

"So how would you like to go about letting the Watchers know we're here enjoying Paris?" MacLeod asked, with evil grin in evidence.

"Anything you like ‒ except dancing on the Eiffel Tower!"

"Are you afraid of heights?"

"No. But the potential for getting arrested doesn't appeal to me, and I can't bat my eyes like Amanda."

"You have no sense of adventure!"

"True." Methos paused and thought on the matter. "You know ‒ "

"I hate it when you start talking with that master manipulator look on your face."

"Hush. Have I ever gotten you killed?"

"Yes."

"Not permanently."

"There is that."

"I was thinking that we could combine our objectives. Get you back on the Watchers' radar and flush out whomever was the puppet master behind Justine. What do you think?"

"I think it sounds like a good idea ‒ they need to be outed. Even better if we do it before Joe gets dragged back into it. What's rattling around in that devious mind of yours?"

*****  
Joe's cell phone vibrated just before dinner was served, and he politely excused himself to take the call in the next room after he saw the caller ID, the head of the North American territory, Dave Polanski.

"Dawson," Joe answered, propping himself against a stucco wall.

"What the hell are you doing down in my Sonora patch, Dawson? MacLeod is still listed out of Euro."

"Last I heard, he still is," Joe said evenly. "I was reassigned, Dave."

"To El Alacrán? Who the hell did you piss off? And why wasn't I informed? Your first report just hit my desk this morning! I appreciate a little heads up when a senior agent starts poaching on my lawn."

"Must be a paperwork snafu," Joe said calmly. "You know how it is, everyone expects someone else to do the scutwork. Decision was over my head, I figured you knew."

"If I knew, I wouldn't put you within a hundred miles of Montoya. He's stung a half a dozen agents in the last decade."

"I've got a handle on it. Montoya is a pussywillow compared to some of the guys I've run into with Mac," Joe said shortly. "Tell you what, I'll send you a personal report, direct, when this is wrapped up. Or sooner, if I'm still in the doghouse at the end of the month."

"You'd better. You're in my doghouse, now. And you keep some separation from El Alacrán! He's no knockover, young as he is. He's poison. And I don't want to lose you on my Watch, okay?"

"Okay, Dave. Maybe we can get together for a drink in a few weeks, we'll spin some yarns," Dawson agreed, then started, as a voice whispered near his ear.

"A pussywillow?" Montoya had pussyfooted up behind him and listened, his head cocked curiously. "Perhaps I should be offended?"

"Gotta go, Dave..." Joe said quickly, and clicked the phone shut on Dave's protest. "What are you, Ninja Caballero?"

Montoya's teeth gleamed in the lamplight. "Apache School of Honorable Horsethievery. With graduate work in Chivalrous Sneakiness under Zorro. I see there is much we must correct in my Chronicle."

"You're as bad as Methos," Joe complained. "And that's probably what he likes about you," he added as he lead the way back to the dining room, and so completely missed Montoya's look of astonishment.

*****  
The French and the Swiss bidders dropped out when the bid exceeded 65,000 Euros, leaving three determined competitors for the medieval manuscript. The first, antique collector sometimes dealer, the high profile Immortal, Duncan MacLeod. The second, the representative for the International Asset Corporation, fourth generation Watcher, Arlen Shapiro. And third, bidding for his reclusive uncle, Adam Pierson, Ph. D., ROG.

Methos was a teaser. He repeatedly waited until the last half-second to bid and keep the auction going. He acted undecided, and when necessary, covered his impish smile with his bidding number card.

Judging by the reddening face, Shapiro's frustration level seemed to be elevating with the bids. Methos knew that the rumor the manuscript originated from the pen of General Darius, (a document dividing a conquered territory amongst his warriors) would so intrigue the Watchers that they would be unable to resist. That after all was why he started the rumor.

MacLeod's sophisticated demeanor of infinite patience, apparently, also irritated Shapiro. Each time either the Watcher or Methos bid on the manuscript, MacLeod immediately raised the bid. There was no fanfare to his bidding, just a slight nod of his head to the auctioneer – who always returned his notice to the Highlander after each competitor's bid. And each time a brief grimace, as if of pain, flickered over Shapiro's face.

Evidently, 100,000 Euros was the Watchers' limit. Once Methos shyly bid that amount, Shapiro abruptly left the bidding room, digging out his cell phone as he proceeded to the auction house foyer.

MacLeod countered the bid and for the first time showed an expression other than detached boredom – a suggestive smile directed to Methos. Methos laid down his bidding card, and shook his head at the auctioneer. The manuscript was now the property of Duncan MacLeod.

In the foyer after the auction, Methos offered to buy MacLeod a beer. "Now that you're a poor man!" They blithely ignored Shapiro's glare as they left to celebrate at one of MacLeod's favorite questionable establishments in Montmartre. "Wait'll Joe hears about this!" Methos added for effect. "No Watcher has seen this contract since the siege of Montsegur!"

*****  
Inside the rowdy bar Shapiro glanced around to find his target; no problem there, the Immortals seemed to be having a splendid time talking a mile a minute to each other, and appeared to have consumed more than their share of the refreshment supply already. He was displeased to see Pierson's Watcher, Amy Thomas, in a corner with another young Watcher. He marched over to their table and sat without being invited.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"What? My job. Watching Pierson. Having a beer."

"Rumor has it, beer is good camouflage around Pierson. You stand out. Maybe you should buy the next round." Amy's companion toasted the new arrival, artfully letting his sleeve slip back to insolently flaunt his tattoo.

Amy scowled at them both. "Freddie was just tapped to cover MacLeod. I was filling him in. Rumor has it MacLeod's newest Watcher ran off with a ski instructor in Gstaad." She allowed a bit of cattiness to color her comment.

Shapiro decided to remind himself to blackmark both their files for poor attitude. "Freddie?" he inquired. "I don't recall a Freddie on the Lyons lists."

"Fredrick Stephenson, just reassigned from London," he said in an Oxford drawl. "You're a long way from Lyons. Adam and MacLeod are in our territory this week." Regional rivalries ran deep and strong in the old guild.

Shapiro ignored the impertinence and asked another question, "Where has Pierson been?"

Amy sighed, but answered the senior Watcher. "Every bloody where the last couple weeks: Dalmatian monasteries, Mexican motels, MacLeod's apartment," she complained. "My travel stipend went over budget so they assigned me a desk to monitor him by credit card. Jerk did it on purpose, I know. It's not like he ever fights anyone."

"And where has MacLeod been?" Shapiro pressed.

"Spring skiing, I'd say, from his luggage tags," Freddy offered offhandedly. "Ask Justine. If you can find her."

"I can't believe she blew off a sweet assignment like MacLeod," Amy declared.

"Not to mention Dawson. Where did he end up, anyway? Old Watchers' Home?" Freddy piped in, earning glares from both sides.

As abruptly as he arrived, Shapiro rose to leave. "At least Dawson knew how to craft a worthwhile field report," he said cuttingly, surprising himself on how sincerely he meant the words. As he stalked out, he could distinctly hear sighs of relief rise from the younger Watchers' table.

*****  
"Did you know there were no such people as barbarians until Justinian got snippy about his code, MacLeod?"

"You were there, I suppose?"

"I was everywhere."

"Sure, you were."

"Barbarian, child!"

"You know there are two bars in barbarian?" MacLeod asked with the deep questioning mien of the pleasantly drunk.

"Who do you think invented the word...and wrote the definition?" Methos preened, waving a wide (and wobbly) hand toward the bar. "More beer!"

"Nooo. Sorry old sod. Time to take you home, for I have ta pack ya!"

"Then more whiskey!" Methos demanded. "It's lighter over the long haul," he confided to the Highlander, passing on one of his most treasured long-lived wisdoms.

"So true. And I just happen to have a lovely old bottle, located next to my bed.... Come on, can ya stand?"

"I can stand ‒ anything! Just watch!" Methos proceeded to prove he could stand on his feet...and on his chair, and on the table. Mac only just caught him as he attempted a flying leap to the bar.

"Oh, good grief!" MacLeod immortal-handled his friend, pulling him to floor level, then toward the door. Whispering in his ears as they departed, "I think the Watchers have noticed us by now. Time to come show me the old ways..."

"Right here?" Methos said hopefully. "That would really get their attention. There's this ancient art with a thong and a feather and a tuft of fur..."

"Shh! Keep that thought and don't pass out on the way home." MacLeod tugged him out the door into the cool evening air of Paris.

"Now see? That's barbaric, leaving a nice, warm bar, full of nice, warm barmaids who will bring us anything we wish."

"Ah, but at home I'll bring you everything ya need. Hey, stay with me! The cold air getting to ya? Shallow breaths. I'll get ya home and tuck you in. Make sure your needs are well met. Just stay on your feet. We're almost to the car."

"Cold is barbaric," Methos complained. "If I catch frostbite on any of my pieces and parts, I'm taking it out of your salary, serf."

MacLeod folded Methos into the backseat of his car so that his pleasantly drunk friend could recline on the way home. But before leaving him, Duncan leaned down for a kiss and then a question. "Tell me Methos, this manuscript I just spent a fortune on, is it genuine?"

Methos didn't open his eyes, but his lips twitched in all too coherent mischief. "Genuine. Gen-u-wine. Did I tell you I invented that word, too? In Alexandria. You see, there was this date palm wine..."

MacLeod laughed, then sighed the sigh of the long suffering, all the while grinning fondly at his now unconscious lover. "Just wait, Methos, I will get the truth out of you. One way or the other. And the longer it takes ‒ the better!" He kissed the nose, then claimed the drivers seat to take them off into the night and far better pursuits.

*****  
Polanski answered the phone in the middle of the night, stifling a groan when he realized it was Arlen Shapiro on the line. He liked Arlen even less than he liked the man's older brother Jack. Yet a veneer of politeness was politic, increasing the depth of his disgust with the interruption.

Shapiro greeted him with a question, "Have you heard from Justine Freedman, or Clive Hedgerow?

"No. Why? Should I have? Isn't Freedman the new MacLeod watcher? MacLeod is in Europe."

"She's missing. Hedgerow too."

"They're not supposed to be on my turf – are they?" Polanski's irritation level ratcheted up another notch. "Freedman and Hedgerow, weren't they in the same class as Vemas's son?"

"I've heard that Adam Pierson was in America."

"Briefly." At this point Polanski was pretty sure he had no idea what this conversation was really about. "Yes, I heard he chased Joe down in Mexico and cadged a week on the playa. Joe tried to fob off his bar tab on me. No way! Your beancounters can eat that bill. You're the ones who thought mixing Joe and Margaritaville was such a hot idea. But Adam beat feet when Montoya entered the picture. I hear he lit out of town like a shot."

"And MacLeod wasn't tagging along?"

Polanski snorted. "No. Even I heard through the grapevine that he was playing pin the tale on the Watcher lately. Or ask Vemas's son. Pierre, I think is his name. They belong to the same cohort. If he's anything like his father, Justine is probably...well, I'm not one for telling tales out of school. I've never actually met any of these kids, but have heard the standard scuttlebutt of their academy class...and they're too damn young to be getting assignments as dangerous as MacLeod."

"Have you spoken to Joe Dawson?"

"Ye -es," he drew out the word. "Joe is sending me reports on Montoya directly, since I'm getting bupkis from regular channels. What's going on, Shapiro?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out." Shapiro disconnected.

Polanski growled in irritation. Later, at a civilized hour, he would call Joe again. And the Paris headquarters, and Lyons, too, and ask a few pointed questions of his own.

*****  
From a discreet vantage point Methos leaned against a maple tree, while staking out the entrance to Justine's empty apartment. It was a long shot at best that her puppet master would appear. More likely a functionary would be sent to search for clues to her whereabouts. Unless there might be clues to her or his own identity they wanted to remove.

While Methos could draw from a deep well of patience developed through necessity and the ages, his own young watcher, Amy, could not. After three hours sitting on a bench pretending to read yesterday's paper, she walked across the grass meridian and side street to the tree her Immortal was holding up and spoke to him in a peevish voice.

"Why the hell don't you just go in and search her place?"

Methos blinked – not in surprise, this wasn't the first time she'd displayed her father's boldness – but because he'd been on the verge of falling asleep on his feet. "Well, ah, I'd rather not get caught? Why don't you go buy us some coffee? I promise to stay put. Wait, look! Who have we here?"

Two men approached the apartment, one middle aged and recognizable to Methos. "Ah, Jack's younger meaner brother Arlen. No surprise."

The younger man was dark and handsome, and known to Amy. "That's Pierre Vemas."

"Wow. Your Dad's whole fan club. Well, let's go have that coffee now."

Anger hardened Amy's face as she watched the men using a key to enter Justine's apartment. "It's a good thing I don't have a gun." She made a growling noise in the back of her throat. "These men...." She left it unfinished.

"No gun! Joe, Joe, Joe. What kind of father...."

"It's not for lack of trying," Amy smiled. "The subject has come up occasionally."

Methos ushered Amy away from his tree. He had what he needed for now.

"Every young woman should carry a gun," he told her as they walk away. "I have this very sweet Smith &amp; Wesson that would fit your hand...."

*****  
Joe got the call from the high mucky muck in the middle of the night. It was the call he'd longed for, they needed him to watch Duncan MacLeod again, and it was the call he had been dreading, they wanted him back in Paris. Now.

 

  


Behind lay three weeks of bliss. Ahead lay the purgatory of Paris in winter. Now, Joe stared out the airplane window at the sun setting over the Sea of Cortez, as lonely as he had ever been.

Reaching into his wallet, Joe pulled out a prize he had pilfered at the last moment from Mary. He studied the photograph of her that he'd dared to pluck from a decorated box of mementoes. Cute as a button, all of age seven, grinning, minus a front tooth, spiffy in a Catholic school uniform. "Mom would approve of ya, sweety, then and now." He put the picture away in the hidden compartment where he kept his closest loves and losses, and concentrated instead on rebuilding and reinforcing his more recent memories.

In his mind he painted Mary reclining on the patio, her sharp Yaqui features softened in the sunset, surrounded by teeming bugambilia climbing the ancient adobe in the background. He heard the hoofbeats when they slowly rode the gentlest horses around the Montoya land, and her laughter as she watched the horses following him around the corral, nudging him for grain and murmured compliments. He felt the water lapping against them both in the moonlight. His yearning for her intimate touch had not lessened in their weeks together; instead, he found the prospects of returning to a solitary existence nearly unbearable.

But it was also unavoidable, if he were to keep her generous dalliance with him both secret and safe from the enemies he'd gathered in the Watchers and beyond. Until he found out who had used him as a stalking horse for taking out Methos and maybe even MacLeod, it would not be safe to return. Still, he was returning to the battle stronger and fitter than when he left Paris, and with new reasons to work to retool the Watchers into a responsible and ethical entity. His sense of responsibility burned more painfully than ever, as he left brighter memories behind.

As he stared out the window, the sun slipped behind the far mountains of Baja California across the Sea of Cortez, and a brief green flash lit the horizon as the shadowed Sonoran desert fell into darkness.

*****  
Joe gave a burly tap to his cell phone after they hit the tarmac in Orly, highly annoyed. It had power, but no service. It sometimes happened ‒ someone in Beancounterville must have downgraded his access to the Americas only to save money, and failed to upgrade again when he was summoned back to Paris. It was just one more pain in the ass on top of the many real and psychic pains in the ass that made up international travel through the States. Customs hassled him about packing his new cane in his luggage, security hassled him about the metal bits in his legs, and now the Watchers were hassling him about tickety-boo phone costs.

Joe was well aware he was jet-lagged and too tired to be trusted with common courtesy, so he made an extra effort to smile at the stewardess as he exited the red-eye, but she looked more alarmed than charmed at his attempt. Joe's shoulders slumped. He'd left Guaymas at five in the afternoon ‒ two hours to Phoenix, five hours to Newark (extra credit for circling New Jersey about a dozen times.) The layover and cross-Atlantic flight were just gravy after that. If he were in San Carlos, he would just be waking to el desayuno and Mary, or more likely Mary would drive the thought of food out of his head entirely.

Instead, he was looking forward to rush hour on a gray, sleeting Paris evening, without even knowing where they had stashed his ride. It'd serve the beancounters right if he booked a stretch limo back to his apartment. In fact, he would.

If he had a working phone.

Joe managed to drag himself to the baggage carrels without murdering any innocent bystanders, and was about to haul his gear to the limo counter when he noticed the zipper on his bag wasn't fully closed. Slightly suspicious, he opened it further, and found the antique cane Señor Montoya had given him had been stripped of its careful wrappings and lay loose on top. He ran his hands over it, checking for scratches or breaks, but the tough old wood had come through without any obvious damage.

He swapped the canes, taking it for an omen. If the fine, old antique could survive a baggage transfer from Guaymas to Paris without moaning and complaining, then so could he. Straightening his shoulders for the final push to the taxi stands, Joe pulled up short on the sidewalk when a looming figure deliberately stepped into his path.

"Monsieur Dawson?" A tall young man with coffee-colored skin in his middle twenties spoke in the accented island French of Martinique. His shoulders tried the seams of his jacket, and he moved like a dancer. Or a fighter. He flashed the Watcher symbol on his wrist. "I will be your driver," he added stiffly, sweeping open the rear door of a blue Renault.

"So much for the stretch limo," Joe murmured, and reflexively returned the subtle symbol exchange, wincing when his greeter stared at the discolored sting scar that still clouded the center. "Where's my Jeep?" he asked, shutting his cuff before the driver could get a good look.

"In storage. You weren't expected." With ease he dropped Joe's bag in the trunk.

Joe brushed off an all too obvious helping hand as he slid into the roomier back seat of the car, rearranging his legs. "Great. Probably means the heat is shut down at my apartment, too."

"Most likely. You weren't..."

"Yeah, yeah, I wasn't expected. I get it." Joe sank back into the seat as the driver accelerated, feeling even sorrier and gloomier than a year of jet lag. And stupider than a box of rocks. Of course he wasn't expected. He was supposed to be wormfood in Sonora. And apparently whomever was behind it just wasted a few thousand pounds of jet fuel to finish the job in Paris. "How did you draw the short straw to pick me up?"

"I was ordered."

Joe studied him openly, wondering just how far those orders extended. "You're Pierre, Jacque's son, right? I thought you were an art professor in Marseilles. What the hell are you doing playing chauffeur?"

Pierre nodded tightly, face impassive, with only the slightest tic in the corner of his eye betraying annoyance. "The family allowed me to finish my studies. The academic credentials give me an excellent cover. But we Vemas' are Watchers first. Watchers, always."

"Too bad," Joe sighed. "Your father loved to show off your art. You were an excellent artist."

"So were you," Vemas shot back. "You should have stayed in the bars."

"Touchy. Just like your father. We had our differences, Jacques and I. But we were working for the same goal, when he died."

A spark of anger and disbelief heated Pierre's reply, "One of your pet Immortals released Kalas, and he killed my father."

Joe bit back an angry reply. "Immortals aren't ever pets," he said instead, fully meaning his warning. "And your father never passed up a fight. That's what got him killed. Not me. Not Amanda."

"Amanda..." Vemas' hands gripped the steering wheel so hard Joe thought it would crack. "A piece of work, as you Americans say."

"A work of art," Joe gently corrected. "Listen, kid, you want to know a secret about Immortals? They're just like us. They just get more time than you and me to screw up. How about you? When's the last time you screwed something up? We can compare notes." Joe fingered his sword cane thoughtfully.

"When I agreed to pick you up," Vemas ground out between clenched teeth, adding, "Alive." Then he pushed a button on the dashboard, and a very solid, very bulletproof shield slid up between them.

"So much for my magnetic personality," Joe sulked back into the seat cushions.

Joe knew he was in trouble. He was isolated, without communications, and his favorite gun was still in storage. Pierre Vemas clearly wasn't his best buddy.

He watched the sleet pelt the windshield, and sorely missed Mexico ‒ he missed the warm sand, the warm sun, the warm people. And most of all, he missed Mary.

*****  
Amy watched Methos take apart the small handgun for what seemed like the hundredth time. She suppressed a sigh. Finally, while muttering under her breath, she heard him make a noise that sounded like a giggle, of all things.

"All right you! I can do it!"

Methos handed her the gun. "Then do it."

Amy took the gun, and started breaking down the pieces, much more slowly than Methos, meticulously lining them up on the table. "You don't ask Joe to do this," she pointed out.

"Joe learned how to shoot people before he could vote."

Amy opened her mouth to protest, but then stopped. "Oh. Vietnam."

Methos nodded. "Used to be the norm. Young men went off to war before they were old enough to know better. If they lived through it, they were considered adults and took their place in the tribe. Listen, a gun isn't a perfect answer, but sometimes in your line of work it's the only answer. If you pull it out, it may back someone off so you don't have to use it, but probably not. And the first time, do not stop to have a crisis of conscience! Do that later."

"Shoot first, ask questions later?" Amy prodded skeptically. "Is that what Joe did? Paris isn't Vietnam. This isn't a war zone."

Methos' eyes narrowed. "Wars don't always come with flags and uniforms. Just dead bodies. Haven't you ever talked with Joe about it?"

"Joe never talks about Vietnam."

"People hardly ever ask," Methos countered mildly. "But I was talking about your own very personal Watcher war. Because you are in it, up to your pretty neck."

"You mean the hunters like Horton."

"No, or not entirely. There are factions within the Watchers, always have been. Joe has never explained any of this?"

"Sometimes he tells me to avoid so-and-so, but explaining why? No. Would you care to explain it all?"

"Well, it's not really ‒"

"Bullshit!"

"True. Well, when we have more time, we shall have to go into painful detail of all the factions and personalities, et cetera, ad nauseum, but for now we may be in a pinch for time. I've been trying to get in touch with Joe for 24 hours. It's officially time to start worrying."

"Did you call Señor Montoya?"

"No, good idea though, lets delegate that one to MacLeod. You and I need to find Shapiro."

"I thought you wanted me to stay away from Shapiro? He's on Joe's 'list to avoid'."

"Yeah, like the Hatfields should have avoided the McCoys. Did you know there isn't a single Watcher named Hatfield left in the northern hemisphere? You can look it up..." Methos said absently as he pulled out his cell phone and called MacLeod.

"Have you heard from Joe?" he asked without preamble. "I can't get through, and I'm getting a bad feeling. Get through to Mano, if you can, and find out if Joe's slipped his traces again. He's stubborn enough to sneak back into town without phoning."

Methos flipped his phone shut and turned back to Amy.

"OK. Let's you and I go see if we can find Shapiro."

Amy carefully snapped the final piece back on the gun and handed it back to Methos, who refused it firmly. "You take it, or I leave you here and take care of Shapiro my own way."

Amy took the gun and hefted it, weighing it in hand and in mind.

*****  
"Hello, Mano!" MacLeod was torn between worry and feeling foolish at what he was about to ask as he listened to Mano greet him. The thing was that so very often when Methos had a bad feeling it was justified.

"Duncan! It's good to hear from you! How is Paris? Did Joe arrive safely?"

MacLeod sighed. "So he _has_ left! That's what we were afraid of."

"What?" Mano caught the worry in MacLeod's tone. "What's wrong?"

"He's not answering his phone. When did he leave?"

"We took Joe to the aeropuerto yesterday. It was very sad. He was very sad. Mary is very grumpy. This is bad for my digestion."

"Mine too, brother, mine too. He was arriving at Orly?"

"Yes, he should have landed in Paris by now. Tell me, Duncan, have you lost track of your Watcher already? If he were mine ‒"

"Mano, he didn't tell us he was coming and now our friend Adam has a bad feeling. Could be nothing but, still..."

"‒ if he were mine, he'd be properly married and settled down under Mary's watch by now," Mano concluded firmly. "Mary is worried, too. He has not called her. And whatever Joe is, he is not thoughtless or discourteous."

"Married...don't you think that's a little premature?" MacLeod muttered, unsettled by the thought. "But you're right. Joe would call, if he could. Something is wrong."

"I will call my European contacts, if you wish. I can have a dozen armed associates in your control in a day."

"Let's not escalate until we know there is something concrete."

"Do not delay too long, MacLeod. This is familia."

"Actually you've given me an idea. I have an associate of my own. Someone who has tools to track even the Watchers."

"You must tell me about this man! Or is this another secret society? Sometimes I despair of ‒"

"That's a tale for another time, Mano. I have to catch up with Joe, pronto!"

As soon as he hung up with Montoya, MacLeod phoned a certain French lieutenant of his acquaintance and called in a favor, acquiring not only the arrival place and time for one Joseph Dawson, but the vehicle and direction he departed in from Orly. It was a good starting point.

*****  
Methos and Amy watched from his Volvo at a safe enough distance not to be noticed by Shapiro. They spent their time playing Botticelle with allusions to the Watcher dynamic. The calm demeanor Methos displayed helped Amy to concentrate. She even managed to chisel a few answers from her Immortal and began to visualize just how byzantine her organization was.

Finally, they saw their target leaving and pulled out to follow Shapiro's black BMW.

Methos handed his phone to Amy. "Here, use my phone to call MacLeod, you don't want his number on your phone."

Amy punched the first speed dial number, which was labeled 'Mac.' It was answered quickly. "Mr. MacLeod?" Amy asked formally. She was never quite as easy with Joe's subject as he was. "We're moving. Parallel to the river, right now, heading south."

"So is Joe," he replied. "Moving toward the river from the airport. Do you know of any Watcher safehouses in that waterfront?"

"No..." Amy said doubtfully. She raised a brow at Methos' expression and handed him the phone.

"I do, Mac. And you do, too. It's that old riding academy that Horton used with Xavier St. Cloud. It's right on the water. Great for a secret rendezvous. And disposing of bodies."

"And training a certain lethal horse known as 'Dog Food'?"

Methos rubbed his temple in rueful remembrance. "Just so."

*****

  


Joe watched the river flow along beside the street from the back of the Renault. He told Pierre a story about playing poker with his father when they were much younger. Pierre remained silent. Joe ended his story with a sigh. It was going to take a more direct tactic with the young Watcher.

"Your father had a temper. Quite a temper. I'm sure you noticed. But he believed in the Watchers. He would do anything to protect us. Including kill me if necessary. But he didn't, he just knocked me on my ass. More than once," Joe smiled to himself with strangely fond remembrance.

Pierre glanced in the rear view mirror, his eyes bleak. "If he'd followed the old Watcher Code to the letter, you'd be dead and he'd be alive."

"Kalas killed your father. Not Amanda. Not MacLeod. And not me. I'm not your enemy."

"Don't pretend to be my friend," Pierre snapped.

"No danger of that. Now where the hell are we going? This runaround is getting old."

"A safehouse."

When Pierre turned off the main road onto an isolated driveway Joe recognized the long, lonely approach to the riding academy where he had once tried to kill his brother-in-law, James Horton. "You've got a lousy sense of self-preservation if you think this place is safe." Paddocks, high fences and outbuildings insulated the grounds from the view of its distant neighbors and passing traffic. A sudden vision of a trained horse bolting toward Methos on a beach in Mexico flashed through his memory.

"So you've been a part of it from the start." Joe indulged in a flash of anger and banged the head of his cane against the screen, startling Pierre into swerving, nearly clipping a tall hedge that crowded the narrow lane. "Your father at least had the pride to fight face to face. Not with poison." The blow made his whole wrist sting. He rested his hand on the fancy leather seat backing just below the bulletproof screen protecting the driver, until he could flex his fingers again.

Then with a twist, Joe unsheathed the sword from the antique cane, and shoved it through the polished Cordoban leather covering the seat. The tip came out just a hairsbreadth behind Pierre's jaw, and the cold metal kissed his neck. "Now, stop the car. I'm through with you, rookie."

The hedgerows crowding the winding lane opened into the stable yard just ahead, hemmed beyond by barns and the dark, chilly waters of the Seine. The Renault lurched to a stop and Pierre jumped out. "You cut me!" he yelled, shocked. Obviously the kid had finally realized that Dawson could be a danger to him. All the way from the airport Pierre had driven with Joe at his back. Armed.

Joe smiled. "Hell, no. I just tapped you. Steel a little cold?" Joe asked conversationally. Sometimes it was good to have your danger factor underestimated.

Joe thought about locking out Pierre and staying behind the bullet proof glass. But Joe wasn't known for doing things the easy way, or delaying the unpleasant. He clambered out of the car, while the younger Watcher was startled, and lifted his sword just in time to slap away the handgun that Pierre finally drew with a shaky hand. This time Joe drew blood across the young man's palm.

Pierre stared at the blood for a moment, the moment in which Joe laid his sword where neck and shoulder met. The young Watcher froze, backed up against the hedge. The tableau was quiet except for their breathing. Joe eventually broke the silence, "You're very young to die."

Just then a black BMW pulled up behind the Renault and screeched to a halt, blocking any escape back to the main road.

Joe stepped back, concealing the sword next to his leg. "I'm disappointed in you, kid. Your dad wasn't a sneaker. I can't believe he raised one." Before the passengers of the BMW could get a good look, he twisted the sword back into the cane and leaned against the blue Renault, as if waiting all day. "If you get the chance, run. Or you're dead. Shapiro won't leave witnesses." Immediately he was covered by two solemn looking gunmen ‒ one dressed in blue denim, jeans and jacket; the other in a bad brown suit. Next, Arlen Shapiro, in a black, thousand Euro suit, stepped from the rear of the car, brushing away the overgrown bits of hedge that clutched at him as he peered over the shoulders of his henchmen.

Pierre started to object, "What do you know about my father? You fought all the time."

"More than you, apparently, if you're apprenticing to Arlen Shapiro," Joe pitched his voice for Pierre's ears only. "Jacques only picked fights with people he considered a fair challenge. Arlen never made the weight, back in the day." Joe ignored Pierre's uneasy scoffing protest, and analyzed the tactical situation. It didn't take long. The tactical situation was shit. Delay was the first order of business.

"Arlen! Quel suprise. You always found someone else to do your dirty work for you."

"And so many willing volunteers when it came to you, Joe," Arlen shot back. "Take Pierre here, so eager to go the extra distance to please the ghost of his father."

"Jacques would spit to see him now," Joe dismissed, deliberately turning his back on Pierre, standing between him and the gunmen. "Taking in your lies; hook, line and sinker."

"Who better to take you down than the son of your bitterest rival?" Arlen taunted.

"Rival? Is that what you told him? Okay, we were rivals! For what? President of the sophomore class? Most paperwork? Best poker player? For what it's worth, Pierre, your dad was the second best player I knew."

"There are still people who hold you at fault, Dawson. And that will be enough to shift the blame for whatever happens here to poor, misinformed, Pierre."

Shapiro's announcement was interrupted by a silver Porsche turning into the driveway. It, too, screeched to a halt sideways, blocking the road. MacLeod emerged from the car and drew his sword in fluid motion.

Joe muttered something about a sheepwit yet again bringing a sword to a gun fight.

"So, I'm late to the party again!" MacLeod slowly approached Shapiro and his two gunmen. He held his sword at a jaunty angle against his shoulder as he approached them.

"No closer, MacLeod!" Shapiro warned. The gunman in Levis immediately transferred his aim to MacLeod, stepping between the Immortal and Shapiro. The other man's gun still remained trained steadily on Joe.

MacLeod glanced at Joe's cane. Joe gave him a grim smile and ran his thumb over the trigger spring of the swordcane.

"Watchers killing Watchers. Tisk tisk, you'd think you were learning bad habits from Immortals."

"MacLeod, your very presence illustrates Dawson's guilt!"

"Guilty of having friends?" MacLeod asked casually.

"Consorting with Immortals!"

"Ah, that again. Just like your brother."

"Don't speak of my brother!" His shout was loud enough to startle everyone for a moment.

In that moment, MacLeod used a move (remarkably simular to the one Joe had used on Pierre) to remove the weapon from the denim clad gunman's hand, (but with a bit more bleeding.) He then took quick possession of the dropped gun and aimed it at Shapiro.

The second gunman, of the bad brown suit, still held his weapon on Joe and began to move closer to him, when there was a squeal of overloaded brakes and a grey Volvo shuddered around the last turn in the lane and pulled up behind the Porsche. In the momentary silence after the engine died, they all heard a matter of fact voice say, "Take your first shot quickly, and make it count." The car doors sprang open, but the occupants stayed low, using the heavy steel construction of the old Volvo doors for cover.

"This party is really hopping now!" MacLeod's smirk was aggravating by anyone's standards. Even Joe's. Especially Joe's.

"Shoot him!" Shapiro ordered the gunman in brown covering Joe. "Shoot them all!"

Joe had already begun inching forward when MacLeod distracted everyone by disarming the first guard. By the time Shapiro yelled, Joe had nearly made it within reach of the brown suited gunman. Nearly. With a *snick* the sword sprang into his hand even as Shapiro gave the order to fire. It was going to be a few inches too far, but he kept moving. Then a massive shove from behind pushed him violently forward, off his unwieldy legs. Without his cane, he had no chance of keeping his balance, but with one last upper body lunge he used the forward momentum to bury the sword deep into the belly of the second gunman. Backpedalling in shock, the man in the brown suit gripped the blade in his left hand reflexively, even as he pulled the trigger on the gun in his right.

Joe dropped the swordcane to try and keep from clocking himself on the cobbles as he landed facefirst on the road next to the hedge. When the gun went off at point blank range, his whole body jerked, instinctively curling against the violent sound.

The gunshot echoed down the lane and around the deserted stable. Everyone froze, staring at Joe. But it was Pierre Vemas who inhaled, shocked, and touched his chest. His hand came away wet, and red. The young Watcher fell to his knees, then toppled over, effectively pinning Joe to the pavement.

Shapiro nearly howled in frustration when his second gunman dropped his gun to clutch at the sword piercing him and fell to the ground a few feet from his boss. With unexpected speed, Shapiro scooped up the gun and emptied it into MacLeod before the Immortal could move a step closer. "My brother should have killed you the first time he had a chance!"

MacLeod grunted from the impact, staggered into the hedge, then fell lifeless into the ditch. Shapiro grabbed the living guard, and pushed him toward MacLeod's body. "Get his sword and behead him!"

"What? Hey, I didn't sign on for that." The gunman in blue jeans looked surprisingly squeamish, despite having been bloodied by MacLeod.

"Then I'll do it myself," Arlen said with murderous intent, grabbing the sword and shoving the gun his man had dropped back into his hand, then pushing him toward Joe, where he still lay pinned to the ground by Pierre's body. "Kill Dawson if anyone interferes."

"You're all Watchers. You're the ones who're not supposed to interfere," Adam's voice floated calmly over the scenario. "How about we all stop interfering, and go home and have a beer?" he suggested reasonably, as he stood with the Volvo door open, steadying his Glock on the frame. Self-consciously, Amy mirrored his stance on the other side with her Smith and Wesson, her eyes wide, her gun angled too high. While she wasted a second trying to get the remaining gunman in her sights, he dropped out of sight between the cars.

"If you don't put down your guns, we kill them both!" Shapiro shouted, bringing the katana around with a vicious hiss, crouching to keep the BMW and the Porsche as cover. His voice moderated to a surprisingly gentle wheedle. "I see you there, Amy Thomas! Your mother would be appalled. I can make sure you get out of this, get you back safe to your family. You aren't going to shoot anyone. You don't have it in you."

"Amy, if you aren't going to shoot someone, I really would prefer it if you got back into the car and ducked behind the dashboard," Methos said in an even, unjudging voice. "So would Joe."

"Damn straight," Joe growled to himself, as he flipped on his back in the effort to get out from under Vemas. He stilled as he checked Vemas' pulse, then did his best to bunch up the man's shirt against the bleeding. The remaining gunman crawled around the bumper and crouched between the BMW and the Renault. He dropped to his knee, bringing the muzzle of his gun inches from Joe's head. Joe looked from the black gunbore to the shaking hand to the worn Levi jacket. "I had a jacket like that, once," he said calmly. "I got it after the war."

"Shut up. I have to do this. I'm sorry." The Levi jacket was a little too large on the gunman, Joe saw. His voice was young, and shaking, and his tattoo was painfully new.

"No. That's the thing. You don't have to do it." The way the gun was shaking, Joe sincerely hoped it didn't have a hair trigger. "This is a mistake." Joe looked into his eyes. They were scared, committed, eerily familiar. Young and dumb. Joe had seen those eyes before. In Vietnam, after his first firefight. In his own shaving mirror.

"What are you waiting for? They killed Justine!" Shapiro cracked. "They killed all of them! Hell, they probably even killed the horse!"

"Justine? Who is this Justine?" Methos started to say, but Shapiro's words had already broken Joe's temporary spell over the gunman. Or perhaps it was the momentary flush of guilt. He steadied. He aimed.

"Adam said I had to shoot someone." Amy's voice came from just over the shoulder of the Levi jacket.. "Do we draw lots?"

The gunman was startled into a half turn, the gun swinging to address the new threat. Joe's hand shot out and dragged the barrel down; it discharged at the same moment that Amy fired her Smith and Wesson. In horrifying slow motion, a red blotch grew in the middle of the Levi jacket, and the gunman toppled over onto Pierre's body, burying Joe altogether under their combined dead weight. Blood rivulets threaded their way from the three bodies through the cobblestones to the ditch.

*****  
"Abominations!" In a blind fury Shapiro lifted MacLeod's katana high above the vulnerable neck.

Methos calmly stepped a yard from the Volvo to improve his angle and fired twice in rapid succession, striking Shapiro through the heart with both shots. Shapiro crumpled to the ground, his dead hand still clutching the sword as he fell across MacLeod.

"Joe!" Amy stashed her gun back in her coat pocket and dashed to the crumpled bodies pinning her father to the ground. First lifting away the gunman in denim and then Pierre, as if they weighed nothing, she rapidly reached Joe, heaving a loud sigh to find him still alive.

Methos walked over to Shapiro's body, kicked him once, just as MacLeod struggled to take in a breath.

"Get him off!"

"Let that be a lesson to you, MacLeod," Methos nodded toward the sword still gripped in Shapiro's hand. "Firepower. Is. More. Effective. Than. Noble. Intent."

"What about clean living and reverence?" MacLeod asked, pushing aside the body himself and reclaiming his sword.

"Highly overrated." Methos glanced over at Joe, who was struggling to get out of his overcoat, soaked in the blood from two bodies. Amy was helping him. Both of them had faces with an unhealthy hue of white. He moved to check the pulses of the remaining bodies. "This one's still alive. Want me to fix that?" he asked the general audience, not wanting to put the decision on Joe.

"No!" Joe decided anyway. "Pierre saved my life."

"He nearly drove you to your death," Methos reminded. But he quickly retrieved his black bag from his car, kneeled down next to Pierre and began padding the bleeding wound with gauze. The procedure caused the young Watcher to gasp and temporary wake, but he quickly passed out again.

"It stops here, if I can help it." Joe insisted.

Methos stood up from his patient and assisted MacLeod in helping Joe to his feet, steadying him as he swayed. "It never stops," Methos whispered, for the benefit of them both. He nodded at Amy, who stood staring down at the man she had killed.

Joe stared at the blood on her hands, and his own. He pushed Methos away, and fastidiously moved around the car, out of sight, before getting thoroughly sick.

Whispering, Amy asked, "What do we do with the bodies?"

MacLeod surveyed the scene. "Doc Adam here will have to look after Pierre and Joe. You and I get the honors." He nodded at the three bodies. "We'll use the back of Adam's car. The river will take them from there."

Amy sighed. "You don't have to call him Adam or Doc. I know who he is."

"True, but Pierre doesn't. Never assume someone is unconscious. Help me lift them." MacLeod kept her busy loading bodies into the back of Methos' car. She was holding up remarkably well.

Meanwhile Joe and Methos gently packed Pierre into the larger Renault. "We'll take him to a safe place to heal. You know which place, Mac. Bring extra blankets. See you two later." Methos drove away from the scene, gently grumbling at him about cell phones, upholstery, and apples not falling far from the tree.

"What about all this blood?" Amy asked numbly, surveying the technicolor damage.

MacLeod sighed. "I'm thinking a bit of horse manure and a rake to cover the blood."

"I had to ask."

"Ah, but asking is how you learn." MacLeod grinned at the expression on Amy's face.

Rousing to the challenge, Amy suggested, "There's sand in the riding ring, too. We can use that."

"OK. Though not nearly as much fun." MacLeod remarked. Amy made a huffing noise at him.

Taking advantage of the the fading light, MacLeod removed the supplies he would need from the back of Methos' car.

Amy asked, "Do you always carry tarps for hiding bodies, or was this a special occasion?"

"We don't always have body-snatchers on hand to help out," MacLeod replied.

Amy stopped. "Is that how you really see us?" she asked curiously. "Even Joe? After all the years you've known him?"

"It's a virtue I was late in appreciating, I confess. But it's not his only one."

Amy nodded thoughtfully. "Is Joe all right? I've never seen him like that," she asked more softly.

MacLeod didn't answer immediately. "Are you all right?"

"Of course," she said, a little too fast. "I'm fine."

"It takes time. Even for Joe. Don't expect to be all right. It's not all right. It's not supposed to be."

"But Joe...he's done this for years."

"He's paid for it for years. Do yourself a favor. Don't lock it away."

"How do you know?"

MacLeod looked away. "I know." He turned away, and silently began to erase the signs of their presence.

Amy sighed and whispered, "It's too big to lock away."

"Good. It should be. Now, after we finish this chore, we'll leave the BMW in an unsavory area of Paris. You'll have to follow me, then we'll come back for the second car."

Amy brightened, just a bit. "I get the Porsche."

"In your dreams."

****

  


The grumbling between them exhausted, Methos and Joe rode in silence to the old bookstore they had found shelter in so often in the past. Once there, they helped Pierre to the bed in the basement where Joe had once convalesced after being shot by an Immortal at what should have been his execution by the Watchers. He softly chuckled at the irony. Methos gave him a worried look.

"It's alright. I was just thinking we've come full circle."

"Have we? Well don't get dizzy." Methos opened his medical bag and began to re-dress Pierre's wound. "You should go give Mary a call while I do this. She may be a bit worried. Then we'll check your injuries."

Joe sighed. "I'm fine," he muttered, not putting a particularly fine point on it. He straightened, conscious of Methos' surveillance, and moved to the basement sink to scrub the drying blood away. He dropped his ruined sweater and shirt in the sink, and stared at his streaked reflection in the old mirror. "Crap." He started scrubbing all over again, until Methos nudged him with a towel.

"Don't scrape off your tan. It looks good on you." That earned Methos a faceful of wet flannel. He just grinned and tossed Joe an old sweater with matching holes in front and back. "Here. I stole this from MacLeod. It'll fit."

"You must get tired of patching," Joe said with a little too much black humor as he fingered the holes. He shrugged the sweater on to cover his shivers. "Amy...I never wanted her to see this part of the job. You shouldn't have brought her. This was my mess to clean up..."

"Don't be fooled, Joe. She brought me. The so-called fairer sex is a lot tougher than we are, when it comes to protecting their own. And a lot less squeamish." Methos handed him his phone. "Call Mary," he added sternly. "Ask her."

"She's not going to be happy about this," Joe said with a touch of apprehension.

"You think?" Methos grinned, with too many teeth. "Be happy she's halfway around the world, and take your medicine."

Joe leaned against a post for balance and dialed before he chickened out in front of Methos. He'd never hear the end of it.

"Hola? Yeah. It's me."

"No! I...uh...yeah, we're all okay. Not even a scratch."

Mary apparently wasn't at all fooled by Joe's bright tone. "No, really, we got them all. This cell, I mean. Three of them. They won't ever threaten the hacienda again. And we'll be able to question the driver. Soon." He glanced over at Pierre on the bed, who was not looking particularly talkative, with an oozing wound under the clavicle.

"Tell her about your redoublement and final thrust! El Alacrán will be happy to know his sword lessons didn't go to waste," Methos said helpfully, as he dosed and probed and sewed his patient. He gleefully eavesdropped on Joe's conversation with Mary, who turned out to have a much more voluble opinion of events than even he imagined.

"No, really, we had them surrounded," Joe said, a little desperately. "He's exaggerating."

"Oh come on, Joe, you were a natural," Methos needled.

Joe edged around the post so he had his back to the operation, and the teasing. "When can I fly back?" Joe hesitated a moment too long. "There's some loose ends I need to tie up first."

"I should tie you up and ship you back to Guaymas COD," Methos offered.

Joe just looked down at his shoes, and listened, before finally replying with a soft, sad cadence in his Latin stilted Spanish.

When Joe finally closed the connection he sighed, then turned toward Methos. "You enjoyed that," he accused.

"You bet." But seeing Joe's heart wasn't in it, Methos didn't needle further.

"She wants me to return. I want to show her Paris. But not yet! This mess! I have to be sure it's safe. It's gotta stop," He pointed at Pierre, who had begun showing signs of waking. "He's Amy's age."

"Yes, they all start out remarkably young. The clever live to tell the tales of scorpions and lions."

"How long can a Watcher feud last?" Joe asked with false optimism. "Maybe we can stop it here."

"How long? Well, that dustup between the Romney Druids and Constantine's watchers is _almost_ over," Methos offered.

"You're comforting. Which side am I on?"

"Why spoil the surprise?"

"I'll go with the Druids. They probably had better beer."

"Now you're getting the hang of it."

Joe levered himself down in the chair near the bed. "He'll live?"

"He'll live."

"One out of seven. Three down here and three down in Sonora." There was a lifetime of struggle in Joe's sigh. "Lucky seven, Pierre."

*****  
Epilogue

A vine of bugambilia twined around the column that Mary had stopped to rest against. She was exhausted, even dizzy after the long lonely drive back from the farmacia in Guaymas. And no wonder, she and Joe had spent their time together in a whirlwind of activity that seldom included a full night of sleep. Now, since he had left, she woke often, reaching across the cool sheets for his missing warmth. An incoming marine breeze cooled her face, providing some relief. She sighed, and admitted to herself that she missed Joe. Their time together had been magical. Perhaps she would visit him in Paris this spring as they had once planned, despite his disturbing reluctance on the phone.

Continuing on her way, she walked slowly along the adobe pavers through the inner patio to the small rooms next to her laboratory where she had moved after her husband's death. She shook her head, attempting to dispel the cosmic irony she felt that the first lover she had taken these many years since her husband's death was a Watcher! It seemed the Universe had a warped sense of humor.

She let herself inside, kicked off her shoes and stashed her purse. She longed to collapse on her bed _(Joe's gone!)_ and sleep, but she needed to pee and there was no reason to put it off. She took the small sack from the pharmacy with her into the bathroom where she would use the test kit inside to confirm what she already knew. She only wondered when she should tell Joe.

No. Not when. If. If she should tell Joe. That was the question keeping her tossing through the night. She wanted this, needed this. But Joe. Joe was a dangerous man. Equally as dangerous as her father-in-law. Montoya would insist they stay under his protection. Joe might not accept that. And what if the Hunters came again? Where was safe haven for un bebé? And Joe's Watchers ‒ they would want to make his child a Watcher, too. That could not be borne. She would not allow it.

Perhaps, she would visit Paris, before her secret became too apparent. Or after the birth next summer, when she was fully herself again. For now she needed time to think, and plan, and make her choices. The Universe, or the Fates, or the laughing spirits of her ancestors had laid a twisted path before them all.

 

******  
Finito. Until we meet again.

 


End file.
